每日晨读金融时报|英语口语听力|原文及实用单词短语

UK com­pan­ies attrac­ted a surge of interest from for­eign buy­ers eager to cap­it­al­ise on cheap valu­ations this year, driv­ing Brit­ish deal­mak­ing to a post­pan­demic high.Over­seas bid­ders agreed $142bn in takeovers of Brit­ish com­pan­ies, accord­ing to data from the Lon­don Stock Exchange Group — a 74 per cent uptick from 2024. The sharp rise out­paced a 20 per cent increase in over­all UK mer­gers and acquis­i­tions to a total value of $367bn, the highest level since the pan­demic-era boom.“The UK stock mar­ket remains mater­i­ally under­val­ued,” said Philip Noblet, head of UK and Ire­land invest­ment bank­ing at Jef­fer­ies.“The rat­ings are still poor [com­pared] to rival com­pan­ies in the US but also in Europe, so people keep com­ing . . . We’re going to see more stra­tegic interest from over­seas in 2026 and for big­ger com­pan­ies,” he added.

▸ Wall Street’s Nas­daq extends bounce­back as tech jit­ters recede▸ Japan­ese bond yields climb to their highest level since 1999▸ Global crude oil, gold and bit­coin prices all advanceWall Street stocks rose yes­ter­day as mar­kets exten­ded a rebound from recent tech jit­ters.The Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index was up 1 per cent by early after­noon in New York while the blue-chip S&P 500 index rose 0.8 per cent.The moves con­tin­ued the pre­vi­ous day’s rally when equit­ies were boos­ted by lower than expec­ted infla­tion data and memory chip­maker Micron’s strong earn­ings.Micron’s res­ults had “reignited optim­ism in the AI trade”, said Ulrike Hoff­mann-Burch­ardi, global head of equit­ies at UBS Global Wealth Man­age­ment.Dis­ap­point­ing earn­ings from Oracle and Broad­com last week triggered a broader tech-sell off amid linger­ing con­cerns over high tech sec­tor valu­ations.Shares in Oracle climbed 7.7 per cent after Tik­Tok owner Byte­Dance signed a deal with the com­pany and oth­ers to allow it to con­tinue oper­at­ing the app in the US, resolv­ing a year-long saga over the coun­try’s national secur­ity law.

OpenAI has hired former chan­cel­lor George Osborne to lead the start-up’s work build­ing “demo­cratic” arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence for the world.The archi­tect of the former Con­ser­vat­ive gov­ern­ment’s aus­ter­ity pro­gramme is set to play a lead­ing role within the high-spend­ing com­pany as the head of OpenAI for Coun­tries, an over­seas expan­sion of the $500bn Star­gate ini­ti­at­ive to build data centres in the US.The Chat­GPT maker has billed Star­gate as a way to ensure Amer­ican com­pan­ies and val­ues are at the found­a­tion of the global build-out of AI, provid­ing a bul­wark against Chinese altern­at­ives.“I asked myself the ques­tion, ‘What’s the most excit­ing and prom­ising com­pany in the world right now?’ The answer I believe is OpenAI,” said Osborne, adding that his work would help “soci­et­ies around the world share the oppor­tun­ity this power­ful tech­no­logy brings”.

▸ Wall Street retreats as eco­nomic data sug­gests a weak­en­ing labour mar­ket▸ Big Tech stocks steady after heavy losses in recent ses­sions▸ US gov­ern­ment bond prices rise but dol­lar slides against major cur­ren­ciesUS stocks slipped yes­ter­day after eco­nomic data sug­ges­ted a weak­en­ing labour mar­ket in the world’s largest eco­nomy.The blue-chip S&P 500 index was down 0.5 per cent by lunch­time in New York while the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite slipped 0.1 per cent. Both indices remain close to record highs.Some of the big US tech stocks took a breather after heavy losses in recent days, which began after dis­ap­point­ing earn­ings from Oracle and Broad­com last week. Oracle was up 1.6 per cent and Broad­com rose 0.4 per cent.Offi­cial data showed that the US unem­ploy­ment rate rose to 4.6 per cent in Novem­ber, the highest level since Septem­ber 2021, and above eco­nom­ists’ expect­a­tions of 4.4 per cent.

Fed­eral Reserve gov­ernor Stephen Miran has said that “phantom infla­tion” is dis­tort­ing the US cent­ral bank’s decision-mak­ing and caus­ing it to keep interest rates too high.Miran, a staunch ally of Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump and vocal pro­ponent of lower rates, said yes­ter­day that poli­cy­makers should dis­reg­ard near-term “noise” and set bor­row­ing costs for the long term.“We must be thought­ful in con­sid­er­ing genu­ine under­ly­ing infla­tion­ary pres­sures,” Miran told an audi­ence at Columbia Uni­versity.The Fed cut rates by 25 basis points at each of its past three meet­ings. Last week it reduced them to a three-year low of between 3.5 and 3.75 per cent.The rate-set­ting Fed­eral Open Mar­ket Com­mit­tee has been divided over the scale of the cuts and whether to pri­or­it­ise risks to infla­tion or the labour mar­ket. Three of its mem­bers dis­sen­ted from last week’s decision — includ­ing Miran, who wanted a lar­ger cut of 50bp.

▸ Wall Street’s AI stocks retreat as investor jit­ters reignite over valu­ations▸ Euro notches fourth suc­cess­ive day of gains to hit highest level since Octo­ber▸ Oil prices ease as Zelenskyy says he will give up Nato mem­ber­ship demandStocks linked to arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence mostly fell yes­ter­day, con­tinu­ing last week’s sell-off as investor jit­ters reignited around AI share valu­ations and high cap­ital spend­ing.Chip­maker Broad­com was down 4.8 per cent by early after­noon in New York, hav­ing plunged more than 15 per cent in the three trad­ing days since last week’s record high. Oracle was down 2.8 per cent, also extend­ing last week’s falls.Shares in the two com­pan­ies have fallen heav­ily since both repor­ted res­ults last week amid resur­gent con­cerns around AI-linked com­pan­ies’ soar­ing invest­ments in infra­struc­ture.

Net­flix has agreed an $83bn takeover of Warner Bros Dis­cov­ery, hand­ing it con­trol of one of Hol­ly­wood’s most cel­eb­rated stu­dios and cre­at­ing a global enter­tain­ment power­house.The deal will trans­form the stream­ing giant into the dom­in­ant player in Hol­ly­wood, cap­ping its relent­lessly dis­rupt­ive rise since it was foun­ded as a DVD rental com­pany almost three dec­ades ago.The stream­ing giant will secure a lib­rary that includes the Harry Pot­ter fran­chise and HBO’s premium pro­gram­mingUnder the deal, Net­flix will secure a coveted lib­rary of con­tent includ­ing the Harry Pot­ter and Bat­man fran­chises, WBD’s stream­ing busi­ness and the premium pro­gram­ming of HBO.WBD will con­tinue with a spin-off of its cable tele­vi­sion net­works, includ­ing CNN, Dis­cov­ery and Turner, into a sep­ar­ate com­pany before the stu­dios and stream­ing busi­nesses are sold to Net­flix.Net­flix saw off rivals Com­cast and Para­mount in a bid­ding war over­seen by WBD boss David Zaslav, one of the most power­ful fig­ures in the industry.

▸ US stocks near record highs after infla­tion data lifts hopes of Fed rate cut▸ Green­back up slightly against bas­ket of other major cur­ren­cies.▸ European equit­ies mixed, with French index dip­ping as Ger­many’s climbsUS stocks edged up yes­ter­day, near­ing record highs after infla­tion data that investors judged will keep the Fed­eral Reserve on track to cut interest rates next week.The blue-chip S&P 500 index had risen by 0.2 per cent by early after­noon in New York, while the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite had also gained 0.2 per cent.Equit­ies’ muted gains came as per­sonal con­sump­tion expendit­ures infla­tion fig­ures for Septem­ber, delayed by the gov­ern­ment shut­down, rein­forced expect­a­tions that the Fed would cut interest rates at its meet­ing this month.Core PCE — the cent­ral bank’s pre­ferred meas­ure — was slightly lower than expec­ted year on year, at 2.8 per cent, down 0.1 per cent from August. Monthly core PCE stayed steady at 0.2 per cent.

Bond investors have warned the US Treas­ury about Kevin Has­sett’s poten­tial appoint­ment as Fed­eral Reserve chair, amid fears that he would cut interest rates aggress­ively to please Don­ald Trump.The Treas­ury last month soli­cited feed­back on Has­sett and other can­did­ates from exec­ut­ives at Wall Street banks, asset man­age­ment firms and other par­ti­cipants in the debt mar­ket, accord­ing to people famil­iar with the con­ver­sa­tions.The dis­cus­sions took place before Treas­ury sec­ret­ary Scott Bes­sent held his second round of inter­views with can­did­ates to replace Jay Pow­ell as Fed chair when his term expires in May 2026, these people said.Has­sett, the White House’s senior eco­nomic offi­cial, has emerged as a fron­trun­ner for the pos­i­tion in recent weeks, as Trump and Bes­sent have cut the list of can­did­ates from 11 ini­tial con­tenders.Trump said on Tues­day he planned to name his pick for Fed chair “early” next year and sig­nalled Has­sett was a “poten­tial” con­tender.

▸ Pound jumps against the dol­lar amid signs of strength in UK eco­nomy▸ US blue-chip and tech-heavy indices inch higher in early trad­ing▸ Brent crude climbs to $63 a bar­rel while gold remains roughly flatThe pound jumped against the dol­lar yes­ter­day, put­ting it on course for its best day since May, as stronger eco­nomic activ­ity triggered an unwind­ing of neg­at­ive bets against the cur­rency.Signs of strength in the UK eco­nomy, com­bined with a weaker dol­lar, pushed ster­ling up 0.9 per cent to $1.333, its highest level for more than a month.A closely watched sur­vey showed yes­ter­day that UK busi­ness activ­ity expan­ded at a stronger pace than expec­ted, paint­ing a rosier pic­ture of the coun­try’s eco­nomy.The S&P Global UK Com­pos­ite pur­chas­ing man­agers’ index for Novem­ber came in at 51.2, com­pared with ana­lysts’ expect­a­tions of 50.5. A read­ing above 50 indic­ates expan­sion in activ­ity since the pre­vi­ous month.

OpenAI’s huge early lead in the race to dom­in­ate arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is under the greatest pres­sure since Chat­GPT’s launch, as rivals Google and Anthropic gain ground in the cut­ting-edge sec­tor.Three years on from the debut of its pop­u­lar chat­bot, the $500bn start-up is grap­pling with the real­ity of soar­ing data centre costs, the tech­nical chal­lenges of remain­ing at the fron­tier of AI and the con­stant battle to retain tal­ent.It is also facing a resur­gent Google, with the release last month of Gem­ini 3, Google’s latest large lan­guage model, which is con­sidered to have leapfrogged OpenAI’s GPT-5 and achieved gains from the model train­ing pro­cess that have eluded OpenAI in recent months.“It’s quite a strong dif­fer­ence with the world we had two years ago where OpenAI was lead­ing ahead of every­one else,” said Thomas Wolf, co-founder and chief sci­ence officer of open-source start-up Hug­ging Face. “It’s a new world.”

▸ Global bond yields jump after BoJ gov­ernor hints at interest rate increase▸ Tech sec­tor leads US stocks down as investors scale back expos­ure to risk▸ Bit­coin under fur­ther pres­sure and falls 7% to be down 20% in past monthGlobal bond mar­kets dropped yes­ter­day after the Bank of Japan sig­nalled that it could raise interest rates later this month.Japan’s two-year gov­ern­ment bond yield jumped above 1 per cent for the first time since 2008 yes­ter­day after Bank of Japan gov­ernor Kazuo Ueda indic­ated that the cent­ral bank might raise interest rates this month. Longer-term debt also fell, with the 10-year yield up 0.07 per­cent­age points to 1.87 per cent.The jump in Japan­ese yields, which move inversely with price, rippled through fixed income mar­kets, spark­ing declines from Ger­many to the US.US Treas­ury yields yes­ter­day recor­ded their biggest daily rise in a month, with the two-year yield rising 0.05 per­cent­age points to 3.54 per cent as traders scaled back expect­a­tions of interest rate cuts in 2026. 

Valu­ations of US tech stocks such as Nvidia, Alpha­bet, Microsoft and Meta have become “stretched” as investors are driven by “fears of miss­ing out”, the European Cent­ral Bank said yes­ter­day.The warn­ing, in the cent­ral bank’s latest Fin­an­cial Sta­bil­ity Review, fol­lows sim­ilar cau­tions from insti­tu­tions includ­ing the IMF and the Bank of Eng­land over high valu­ations of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence stocks. “Cur­rent mar­ket pri­cing does not appear to reflect per­sist­ently elev­ated vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies and uncer­tain­ties,” the ECB said.Since the tem­por­ary sell-off in April over US Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump’s trade tar­iffs, mar­kets had been driven by a “renewed risk-on sen­ti­ment” that had pushed “already high valu­ations even higher”, the ECB said in the review.It added that investors were either hop­ing that “tail risks will not mater­i­al­ise” or were being driven by “fears of miss­ing out on a con­tin­ued rally”.

▸ US eco­nomic data tops expect­a­tions and pushes global stocks higher▸ Amer­ican tech stocks return to form, with Nvidia rebound­ing after fall▸ UK shares close higher after Budget day as chan­cel­lor’s plans wel­comedGlobal stocks ral­lied yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing bet­ter than expec­ted US eco­nomic data. The tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index had climbed 1 per cent by early after­noon in New York, with Nvidia rebound­ing1.7 per cent after the pre­vi­ous day’s falls. The blue-chip S&P 500 was up 0.9 per cent.Dell rose 6.4 per cent after the tech com­pany raised its annual fore­casts, due to strong demand for its AI serv­ers.“The mar­ket is digest­ing the Google move,” said Man­ish Kabra, head of US equity strategy at Société Générale, refer­ring to the release of Google’s Gem­ini 3 model, which promp­ted Nvidia’s ini­tial sell-off. “If Google is one of the lead­ing AI con­tenders, it raises expect­a­tions on AI long-term cap­ab­il­it­ies.”

A Budget tax raid on salary sac­ri­fice schemes is set to raise £3bn-£4bn, hit­ting busi­ness and encour­aging employ­ers to cut pen­sion pay­ments to staff.The move by Rachel Reeves is expec­ted to be one of the biggest meas­ures in next week’s Budget, with people briefed on the plans fore­cast­ing that it will raise more than the £2bn pre­vi­ously floated.The plan would reduce the amount of money people can sac­ri­fice from their pay cheques to put in their pen­sion pots without pay­ing national insur­ance.It faces strong push­back from busi­nesses, which would face the brunt of the tax rise and have already seen costs soar as a res­ult of the chan­cel­lor’s decision to increase national insur­ance for employ­ers in her Budget last year.Last week, Reeves reversed course on plans to break Labour’s mani­festo vow by increas­ing income tax after weeks of pre­par­ing the ground for the move, pla­cing the focus on other meas­ures.

▸ US stocks rebound after tumul­tu­ous week on indic­a­tion of Fed rate cut▸ Nas­daq climbs after swinging between gains and losses as tech shares fal­ter▸ European bourses fall, dragged down by Stoxx tech­no­logy sub-indexUS stocks reboun­ded at the end of a week marked by erratic trad­ing, after a top Fed­eral Reserve offi­cial lif­ted Wall Street’s hopes for a Decem­ber rate cut.The tech-focused Nas­daq Com­pos­ite rose 1 per cent in choppy after­noon trad­ing in New York, with the broader S&P 500 1.2 per cent higher.The moves came after the Nas­daq dropped 2.2 per cent in the most tur­bu­lent trad­ing ses­sion since Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump’s “lib­er­a­tion day” tar­iff announce­ment sparked huge mar­ket gyr­a­tions in April.Wor­ries about elev­ated valu­ations for Big Tech groups, which have ral­lied this year, and dimin­ish­ing expect­a­tions that the Fed will cut rates next month have promp­ted sharp pull­backs in recent weeks.

A plan backed by Don­ald Trump to restrict US states from reg­u­lat­ing AI com­pan­ies has pro­voked a back­lash from prom­in­ent Repub­lic­ans and Maga sup­port­ers, and accus­a­tions that he has caved to Big Tech donors.The US pres­id­ent on Tues­day called for “one Fed­eral Stand­ard instead of a patch­work of 50 State Reg­u­lat­ory Regimes” to sup­port the sec­tor’s growth, des­pite vehe­ment oppos­i­tion from some Repub­lican sen­at­ors and gov­ernors.The White House is even con­sid­er­ing an exec­ut­ive order that would poten­tially with­hold fed­eral funds from states who attempt to pass AI laws, accord­ing to a per­son famil­iar with the mat­ter.Trump’s back­ing of a fed­eral frame­work — a pri­or­ity for Sil­icon Val­ley lob­by­ists who fear restric­tions on AI from some states — came two weeks after a group backed by ven­ture cap­ital firm Andreessen Horow­itz and an OpenAI co-founder was formed in Wash­ing­ton in part to fight state-led legis­la­tion.Build Amer­ican AI’s leader Nathan Leamer vis­ited the White House just hours before Trump announced his decision to back the move that had already ignited out­rage among some Repub­lic­ans.

▸ US tech stocks exper­i­ence tur­bu­lent trad­ing amid valu­ation con­cerns▸ Wor­ries per­sist des­pite optim­ism over Nvidia earn­ings as Vix fear gauge rises▸ European stocks close higher, led by Ger­many’s Dax indexUS tech stocks dropped yes­ter­day in tur­bu­lent trad­ing as optim­ism over Nvidia’s robust earn­ings was over­shad­owed by a fresh bout of fears over lofty valu­ations for arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence com­pan­ies.The Nas­daq Com­pos­ite was down about 1.2 per cent in after­noon trad­ing in New York, giv­ing up a gain of more than 2 per cent. The S&P 500 was down0.9 per cent.Shares in Nvidia — seen as a bell­wether for the boom in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence — had ini­tially ral­lied more than 5 per cent after the group pos­ted bet­ter than expec­ted quarterly res­ults late on Wed­nes­day, but slumped 1.1 per cent later in the ses­sion.The Vix index, Wall Street’s so-called fear gauge, soared from about 20 to 28 in the course of two hours, a sharp move that under­scored the abrupt bout of volat­il­ity that jol­ted US equit­ies mar­kets.

Domestic investors have fled the stock mar­ket at a record rate this year, miss­ing out on a storm­ing rally in which Lon­don has out­paced both US and European bourses.UK investors have pulled about £26bn from Lon­don-lis­ted equit­ies in 2025, accord­ing to EPFR data, the highest level on record for a cal­en­dar year as meas­ured by out­flows from funds invest­ing in the coun­try.Nev­er­the­less, the FTSE 100 is on course for its best year since its rebound from the global fin­an­cial crisis in 2009, driven in part by for­eign investors look­ing to diver­sify their expos­ure bey­ond the US and to rel­at­ively cheap valu­ations on the Lon­don mar­ket.“The UK equity mar­ket is the unex­pec­ted win­ner of 2025 but UK investors don’t seem to care,” said Emmanuel Cau, head of European equit­ies strategy at Barclays.UK investors pulled £3.4bn from Lon­don stocks via fund with­draw­als in Octo­ber alone, the biggest monthly out­flow of the year.Ana­lysts attrib­uted the moves in part to next week’s Budget, which is likely to involve tax rises and has promp­ted investors to sell out of the mar­ket and boost their cash reserves.

▸ US stocks edge higher in advance of high-stakes Nvidia earn­ings▸ Delay to jobs data sup­presses momentum for Amer­ican indices▸ European stocks close flat after shak­ing off early lossesUS stocks edged higher in choppy trad­ing yes­ter­day, in a ses­sion char­ac­ter­ised by anti­cip­a­tion ahead of a high-stakes Nvidia earn­ings along­side nerves about the state of the US employ­ment mar­ket.The Nas­daq Com­pos­ite rose as much as 1.7 per cent in early trad­ing yes­ter­day morn­ing, but fell back later in the day fol­low­ing the announce­ment that cru­cial US employ­ment data for Octo­ber would not be released as expec­ted.By early after­noon in New York, the Nas­daq Com­pos­ite and the S&P 500 were both 0.1 per cent higher.The Bur­eau of Labor Stat­ist­ics, respons­ible for the closely watched jobs data that traders use to gauge US interest rate expect­a­tions, said it will not pub­lish its Octo­ber employ­ment report this week as planned, due to the recent US fed­eral gov­ern­ment shut­down ham­per­ing data col­lec­tion.

Former prime min­is­ter Rishi Sunak has been appoin­ted as a senior adviser to both Microsoft and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence start-up Anthropic, becom­ing the latest Brit­ish politi­cian to take a Sil­icon Val­ley role.Sunak, who will remain an MP, worked with both tech groups as prime min­is­ter, set­ting up an AI safety sum­mit in 2023.The former Con­ser­vat­ive leader yes­ter­day said he had “long believed that tech­no­logy will trans­form our world”.“In my role as a senior adviser, I want to help these com­pan­ies ensure that this shift deliv­ers the improve­ments in all of our lives that it can,” he added.Sunak’s twin appoint­ments mean he will be advising rivals in the push for AI break­throughs. Microsoft is work­ing on its own AI tools and is a key backer of OpenAI, Anthropic’s chief com­pet­itor.He fol­lows former deputy prime min­is­ter and leader of the Lib­eral Demo­crats Nick Clegg in tak­ing a post at a lead­ing tech com­pany. Clegg was Meta’s pres­id­ent of global affairs until this year.

▸ Wall Street weak­ens as US gov­ern­ment shut­down con­tin­ues to hang over trad­ing▸ French assets more stable after Mac­ron prom­ises to name prime min­is­ter▸ Gold prices sur­render some ground after this year’s dizzy­ing rallyGlobal equit­ies edged lower yes­ter­day as the US gov­ern­ment shut­down con­tin­ued to hang over fin­an­cial mar­kets.After reach­ing record highs on Wed­nes­day, Wall Street stocks slipped back, with the blue-chip S&P 500 index down 0.3 per cent and the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite fall­ing 0.4 per cent by early after­noon trad­ing in New York.Fund man­agers said the shut­down — which has delayed the pub­lic­a­tion of key US eco­nomic data — meant investors were hold­ing off on mak­ing big bets ahead of third-quarter earn­ings sea­son, which will provide an indic­a­tion of the health of the world’s biggest eco­nomy.“Investors are sus­pen­ded in anim­a­tion with the US gov­ern­ment shut­down and earn­ings sea­son kick­ing off next week,” said Arun Sai, senior multi-asset strategist at Pic­tet Asset Man­age­ment.Stock mar­kets across the Atlantic also broadly weakened, with the region-wide Stoxx Europe 600 index fall­ing 0.4 per cent.In Paris, mar­kets were more stable after Pres­id­ent Emmanuel Mac­ron prom­ised to name a new prime min­is­ter by today. The Cac 40 index edged 0.2 per cent lower.

Global stock mar­kets are at risk of a sud­den cor­rec­tion as the arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence boom pushes valu­ations towards dot­com-bubble levels, both the IMF and Bank of Eng­land have warned.Kristalina Geor­gieva, IMF man­aging dir­ector, yes­ter­day said bullish mar­ket sen­ti­ment about “the pro­ductiv­ity­en­han­cing poten­tial of AI” could “turn abruptly”, hit­ting the world eco­nomy.She was speak­ing hours after the BoE body over­see­ing fin­an­cial sta­bil­ity risks also drew par­al­lels with the 2000 crash that fol­lowed the dot­com boom, warn­ing of the risk of a “sud­den cor­rec­tion” in global fin­an­cial mar­kets.“Today’s valu­ations are head­ing towards levels we saw dur­ing the bullish­ness about the inter­net 25 years ago,” Geor­gieva said in a speech ahead of the IMF’s annual gath­er­ing next week.

▸ Global stocks hit record highs as traders back Wall Street’s AI-driven rally▸ US gov­ern­ment bonds and the dol­lar both attract investor demand▸ Paris equit­ies and French debt recover some losses from earlier in the weekGlobal stocks were trad­ing at record highs yes­ter­day, rebound­ing from a brief dip earlier in the week as investors con­tin­ued to bet on Wall Street’s AI-driven rally.US stocks slipped on Tues­day after reports that tech giant Oracle was facing hurdles con­cern­ing its plans to buy and rent bil­lions of Nvidia chips. The news unsettled investors, rais­ing fears of an AI stock mar­ket bubble.But con­fid­ence returned to the mar­ket yes­ter­day with Wall Street’s two main indices trad­ing at record highs. The blue­chip S&P 500 rose 0.5 per cent and the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite was up 0.9 per cent by early after­noon in New York.

OpenAI has inked $1tn of agree­ments this year for com­put­ing power, rais­ing big ques­tions about how it can fund them. As it burns through cash, it has nowhere near the cap­ital required. The deals often involve cir­cu­lar fin­an­cing that binds big tech groups to its abil­ity to turn a profit. ‘Part of Sil­icon Val­ley’s “fake it until you make it” ethos is to get people to have skin in the game. Now a lot of com­pan­ies have a lot of skin in the game,’ one expert says.

▸ Investor nerves over bubble in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence weigh on Wall Street▸ Dol­lar and Treas­ur­ies advance des­pite con­tinu­ing US gov­ern­ment shut­down▸ European stocks edge lower amid polit­ical crisis in FranceWall Street stocks slipped from record highs yes­ter­day with tech­no­logy stocks pulling the mar­ket lower as investor nerves about a bubble in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence were tested again.Shares in Oracle — which have soared 65 per cent this year — fell as much as 7 per cent fol­low­ing reports that internal com­pany data sug­ges­ted chal­lenges con­cern­ing its plans to buy bil­lions of Nvidia chips and rent them out.The blue-chip S&P 500 index dropped 0.4 per cent while the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite was down 0.6 per cent by early after­noon in New York after brief intra­day record highs in early trad­ing.In spite of a flurry of recent deals between big AI com­pan­ies, some investors are increas­ingly con­cerned that US AI stocks exhibit char­ac­ter­ist­ics remin­is­cent of the dot­com era bubble.

OpenAI has agreed to buy tens of bil­lions of dol­lars’ worth of chips from AMD as part of a deal that could see the Chat­GPT maker take a 10 per cent stake in the $270bn chip­maker over time.The US-based arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence start-up said it had agreed to pur­chase pro­cessors with a total power con­sump­tion of 6 gigawatts — roughly equi­val­ent to Singa­pore’s aver­age demand — send­ing the US-based chip­maker’s shares as much as 30 per cent higher yes­ter­day.The com­pan­ies did not put a total fig­ure on the trans­ac­tion, but OpenAI exec­ut­ives estim­ate that 1GW of capa­city costs about $50bn to bring online, with two-thirds of that spent on chips and the infra­struc­ture to sup­port them.The deal comes just a fort­night after AMD rival Nvidia said that it planned to invest $100bn in OpenAI, with the two com­pan­ies pledging to deploy 10GW of new data centre capa­city.AMD has also issued OpenAI a war­rant to pur­chase as many as 160mn shares at an exer­cise price of $0.01 over time based on AMD’s “achiev­ing cer­tain share price tar­gets” and OpenAI deploy­ing its chips. That would equate to about 10 per cent of the com­pany.

▸ Land­mark deal between OpenAI and chip­maker AMD buoys Wall Street▸ European stocks weighed by polit­ical tur­moil in France as PM resigns▸ Tokyo equit­ies soar to record highs as Takai­chi elec­ted leader of rul­ing partyA rally in global tech­no­logy stocks car­ried Wall Street higher yes­ter­day after a land­mark deal between OpenAI and chip­maker AMD.OpenAI agreed to buy tens of bil­lions of dol­lars’ worth of chips from AMD in order to accel­er­ate the Chat­GPT maker’s devel­op­ment of its new data centres to power its AI mod­els.AMD’s share price rose as much as 37 per cent in early trad­ing before par­ing some gains to stand up about 27 per cent.Other semi­con­ductor names were buoyed by the deal with Super Micro Com­put­ing rising 5.4 per cent, Palantir up 4.5 per cent and Arm Hold­ings rising 4.2 per cent.Wall Street’s tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index was up 0.6 per cent by early after­noon in New York. The blue­chip S&P 500 index gained 0.4 per cent des­pite the ongo­ing gov­ern­ment shut­down in the US.

Gold’s biggest rally since the 1970s is being stoked by “gold-plated Fomo”, as investors fear­ful of miss­ing out on returns and wor­ried about infla­tion add the pre­cious metal to their port­fo­lios.The bul­lion price has rock­eted nearly 50 per cent this year to a record of more than $3,800 per troy ounce after US Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump’s trade war sparked a rush to haven assets and sent the dol­lar tum­bling.But even when tar­iff-induced volat­il­ity in fin­an­cial mar­kets receded over the sum­mer, the gold price accel­er­ated, with a near-12 per cent jump in Septem­ber alone mark­ing the biggest monthly gain since 2011.A cru­cial cata­lyst, said asset man­agers, was the wider range of investors jump­ing on the band­wagon of soar­ing prices after years of record buy­ing by cent­ral bank reserve man­agers.“It’s gold-plated Fomo,” said Luca Paol­ini, chief strategist at Pic­tet Asset Man­age­ment, refer­ring to a “fear of miss­ing out” that has helped stoke huge gains in mega­cap tech­no­logy stocks and other mar­kets such as credit. “Gold has become so big . . . that you can­not ignore it. There becomes a level when it becomes impossible not to own it.”

The Bank of Eng­land yes­ter­day quietly replaced a data­set linked to one of its most closely watched busi­ness sur­veys, adding to uncer­tainty about the qual­ity of UK eco­nomic fig­ures.Accord­ing to data pub­lished by the BoE at 9.31am, busi­nesses expec­ted UK infla­tion for the year ahead to be 3.5 per cent, the highest since 2023.But the BoE then swapped the spread­sheet with the under­ly­ing res­ults of its sur­vey of chief fin­an­cial officers on its web­site.The updated ver­sion showed the oneyear infla­tion expect­a­tion at 3.4 per cent, the same as the pre­vi­ous month.“The Bank of Eng­land suc­cumbed to data report­ing prob­lems, chan­ging the pub­lished res­ults of their Decision Maker Panel after the num­bers were pos­ted . . . without issu­ing a cor­rec­tion or explain­ing what happened,” said Robert Wood, eco­nom­ist at con­sultancy Pan­theon Mac­roe­co­nom­ics.

▸ Semi­con­ductor shares rally glob­ally, lift­ing Seoul stocks to all-time high▸ Stoxx Europe 600 bench­mark hits second con­sec­ut­ive record peak▸ Weak debt auc­tion pushes Japan­ese bond yields to highest level since 2008A rally in chip shares car­ried European and South Korean equity indices to record highs yes­ter­day.Semi­con­ductor stocks climbed glob­ally after SK Hynix and Sam­sung Elec­tron­ics — the two biggest South Korean chip­makers — signed a let­ter of intent with OpenAI to sup­ply the com­pany’s $500bn data centre project, dubbed “Star­gate”.Shares in SK Hynix and Sam­sung Elec­tron­ics rose 9.9 per cent and 3.5 per cent, respect­ively.Sen­ti­ment towards the sec­tor was also boos­ted by OpenAI com­plet­ing a deal that val­ues the com­pany at $500bn, mak­ing it the world’s most valu­able privately owned com­pany.

Private employ­ers in the US shed the largest num­ber of jobs in two-and-ahalf years in Septem­ber, accord­ing to unof­fi­cial data that investors are rely­ing on because of the gov­ern­ment shut­down.Private sec­tor employ­ment fell by 32,000 last month, payroll pro­cessing group ADP said, con­found­ing eco­nom­ists’ expect­a­tions for an extra 50,000 roles and trig­ger­ing a rally in Treas­ur­ies.The US gov­ern­ment shut down for the first time in nearly seven years early yes­ter­day, tip­ping Wash­ing­ton into one of the biggest polit­ical crises of Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump’s second term.The clos­ure is expec­ted to res­ult in the fur­lough of around 750,000 work­ers and could cost the US eco­nomy bil­lions of dol­lars’ worth of lost out­put after Repub­lic­ans and Demo­crats failed to strike an agree­ment to fund the fed­eral gov­ern­ment into the new fiscal year.

▸ Phar­ma­ceut­ical groups push Stoxx 600 and FTSE 100 to all-time peaks▸ Treas­ury bonds rally after weaker than expec­ted US employ­ment data▸ Wall Street indices mixed after claw­ing back losses from earlier in ses­sionEuropean and UK stocks jumped to fresh record highs yes­ter­day, buoyed by phar­ma­ceut­ical stocks after Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump announced a new dir­ectto-con­sumer drug sales pro­gramme.The US gov­ern­ment’s agree­ment with Pfizer to lower drug prices and sell medi­cines dir­ectly to patients is expec­ted to be rep­lic­ated by other phar­ma­ceut­ical com­pan­ies.Wash­ing­ton said it was nego­ti­at­ing higher prices for drugs sold to G7 coun­tries plus Switzer­land and the Neth­er­lands to coun­ter­act the lower US rev­en­ues for pharma com­pan­ies.The pan-regional Stoxx Europe 600 index climbed 1.2 per cent while Lon­don’s FTSE 100 gained 1 per cent — with both indices clos­ing at all-time highs.

Sir Keir Starmer has tried to revive his flounder­ing premi­er­ship by urging his flag-wav­ing Labour party to launch a “pat­ri­otic” fight against Nigel Far­age’s Reform UK, declar­ing: “I don’t believe Bri­tain is broken.”The prime min­is­ter used the threat of Far­age as a ral­ly­ing cry in his speech to the Labour con­fer­ence, accus­ing the Reform leader of “stir­ring the pot of divi­sion” and want­ing Bri­tain to fail.Call­ing Far­age “a snake oil sales­man”, he stepped up his cri­ti­cism of people seek­ing to sow “fear and dis­cord across our coun­try”.Starmer arrived in Liv­er­pool with wide­spread dis­con­tent over his lead­er­ship, spec­u­la­tion that he could face a chal­lenge after a round of elec­tions next May and a calam­it­ous -54 YouGov approval rat­ing.In a cru­cial speech, Starmer pitched his mes­sage at his party’s work­ing-class base, prom­ising to cut immig­ra­tion, feting industry and brand­ing Labour “the pat­ri­otic party” as act­iv­ists waved flags they had been given.

▸ Pro­spect of US gov­ern­ment shut­down helps push Wall Street lower▸ European equity indices more upbeat, led higher by Frank­furt▸ Gold extends gains but crude oil retreats on sup­ply glut fearsWall Street edged down yes­ter­day as the chances ticked higher of a US gov­ern­ment shut­down begin­ning at mid­night.The tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index was 0.2 per cent lower by early after­noon yes­ter­day while the blue-chip S&P 500 was down 0.1 per cent.US vice-pres­id­ent JD Vance said on Monday after­noon that the gov­ern­ment was “headed to a shut­down” after Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump and con­gres­sional lead­ers failed to strike a deal in a White House meet­ing.While gov­ern­ment shut­downs do not have any con­sist­ent read­through for fin­an­cial mar­kets, investors were mostly con­cerned that it would mean a sus­pen­sion of Fri­day’s closely watched non-farm payrolls data release.The data has been taken as a key baro­meter of interest rate cut expect­a­tions in recent months.

Down­ing Street has opened the door for Labour to break its elec­tion prom­ises and raise taxes in the Budget, as chan­cel­lor Rachel Reeves told crit­ics in the party to stop ped­dling the “dan­ger­ous” idea that she can relax fiscal dis­cip­line.Dar­ren Jones, the prime min­is­ter’s chief sec­ret­ary, refused to rule out the pos­sib­il­ity that Reeves would break Labour’s mani­festo vow not to increase income tax, value added tax or national insur­ance rates. He told Sky News: “The mani­festo stands today because decisions haven’t been taken yet.“I’m not rul­ing any­thing out and I’m not rul­ing any­thing in,” he added. “Today, the mani­festo stands.”Earlier Reeves told a rest­ive Labour con­fer­ence in Liv­er­pool to “have faith”, arguing that the only route to the party’s pri­or­it­ies and a strong eco­nomy was to main­tain the con­fid­ence of the mar­kets.While min­is­ters often use their con­fer­ence speech to address an audi­ence out­side the hall, Reeves’ mes­sage was aimed squarely at internal crit­ics who believe she should relax her fiscal rules to boost spend­ing.Sir Keir Starmer will today back his chan­cel­lor as he warns the party in his key­note speech to brace itself for decisions that are “not cost-free or easy”.

▸ Wall Street climbs as investors shrug off risk of US gov­ern­ment shut­down▸ Dol­lar retreats against lead­ing forex rivals but Treas­ur­ies attract buy­ers▸ European equity indices advance while pres­sure eases on UK gilt yieldsWall Street stocks rose yes­ter­day as investors shrugged off the risk of a poten­tial US gov­ern­ment shut­down.Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump was set to meet law­makers yes­ter­day in an effort to break the budget dead­lock behind the loom­ing fed­eral shut­down.Fed­eral fund­ing will expire today if no short-term fund­ing agree­ment is reached, with a shut­down fol­low­ing tomor­row.“In the past, shut­downs have had a mixed impact on equit­ies, rates and the dol­lar with no clear pat­tern,” said ana­lysts from Gold­man Sachs, not­ing that the dol­lar had weakened “in most instances”.In the clearest sign of investor con­cern, gold prices soared to another fresh record high, punch­ing through the $3,800 a troy ounce mark.The tech sec­tor car­ried stock mar­kets higher with the Nas­daq Com­pos­ite up 0.6 per cent by early after­noon in New York. The blue-chip S&P 500 index was up 0.2 per cent.

Investors have warned that an Andy Burnham-led Labour gov­ern­ment would spark a sell-off in gilts and the pound if it launched a bor­row­ing spree against a back­drop of fra­gile mar­kets.Burnham, Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, said that the UK should not be “in hock” to bond mar­kets, as he burn­ished his leftwing cre­den­tials in what is widely seen as a chal­lenge to Prime Min­is­ter Sir Keir Starmer.But fund man­agers said Burnham’s pro­posal to bor­row an extra £40bn to build coun­cil houses, along­side a mass nation­al­isa­tion scheme, would alarm a gilt mar­ket already under pres­sure from the scale of gov­ern­ment bor­row­ing.Mark Dowding, chief invest­ment officer for fixed income at RBC Blue­Bay Asset Man­age­ment, said: “I think this speaks to his own fin­an­cial naiv­ety. Mar­ket con­fid­ence would sour very quickly. Yields would rise and the pound would also likely be under pres­sure.”Starmer respon­ded yes­ter­day by com­par­ing Burnham’s eco­nomic policies to those of former Tory prime min­is­ter Liz Truss, whose eco­nomic plans also spooked the bond mar­kets. 

▸ Strong US eco­nomic data damps hopes for exten­ded series of rate cuts from Fed▸ S&P 500 and Nas­daq trend lower while Treas­ury yields rise on robust fig­ures▸ Gilt yields also rise after down­beat com­ments from BoE rate-set­ter on cutsUS stocks slipped and gov­ern­ment bond yields rose yes­ter­day after robust eco­nomic data cast doubt on investors' expect­a­tions for a series of interest rate cuts by the Fed­eral Reserve.Revised fig­ures for US second-quarter growth showed that the world's biggest eco­nomy grew more strongly than pre­vi­ously estim­ated, with GDP increas­ing at an annu­al­ised rate of 3.8 per cent in the three months to the end of June com­pared with an earlier estim­ate of 3.3 per cent.Con­sumer spend­ing was also revised higher, grow­ing at an annu­al­ised rate of 2.5 per cent from 1.6 per cent pre­vi­ously. In addi­tion, the num­ber of ini­tial job­less claims data for the US was lower than ana­lysts had expec­ted.

Bond giant Pimco is bet­ting on a fall in UK infla­tion that will, in turn, allow the Bank of Eng­land to cut interest rates fur­ther than traders cur­rently expect, arguing that there is “noth­ing that spe­cial” about the price pres­sures affect­ing the coun­try.The man­ager of $2tn in assets has an over­weight pos­i­tion rel­at­ive to the bench­mark index in five-year gilts, which stand to bene­fit from more aggress­ive BoE rate cuts.“We don’t think the UK eco­nomy will prove to be a massive out­lier [on infla­tion],” Andrew Balls, Pimco’s chief invest­ment officer for global fixed income, told the Fin­an­cial Times yes­ter­day.Bri­tain is on track for the highest rate of infla­tion among the G7 this year, accord­ing to the OECD. The Paris-based organ­isa­tion said this week that con­sumer prices would rise 3.5 per cent in 2025, up from 2.5 per cent last year, and would remain well above the BoE’s 2 per cent tar­get in 2026.

▸ European defence stocks surge after Trump’s remarks on Ukraine war▸ Wall Street lower on Pow­ell sig­nal that fur­ther rate cuts were not guar­an­teed▸ Dol­lar ral­lies but US gov­ern­ment bonds sold by investorsEuropean defence stocks rose yes­ter­day after Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump said that Ukraine could win back all of its ter­rit­ory that has been seized by Rus­sia.Trump emphas­ised the need for sup­port from Europe when he said on Tues­day that Ukraine should be able to return to its bor­ders from before Rus­sia's full-scale inva­sion in 2022.European defence names rose as investors bet on more sec­tor spend­ing. In Frank­furt, Hensoldt rose 8 per cent and Rhein­metall climbed 3.5 per cent. BAE Sys­tems rose 2.2 per cent in Lon­don and Thales climbed 2.4 per cent in Paris.Defence stocks have been among the best per­formers in Europe this year, driv­ing equity mar­ket returns as gov­ern­ments on the con­tin­ent pledge higher defence spend­ing.

Amazon Fresh gro­cery stores are clos­ing in the UK after just four years, as the US tech giant’s attempt to revolu­tion­ise old-fash­ioned food shop­ping failed to win over enough cus­tom­ers.The eco­m­merce group said yes­ter­day that it planned to close 14 of its Fresh stores, which use tech­no­logy to track what cus­tom­ers are put­ting in their shop­ping bas­kets and dis­pense with the need for check­outs.Amazon plans to replace the final five Fresh stores with its Whole Foods Mar­ket brand, increas­ing the total num­ber of these stores in the UK to a dozen by the end of next year.Amazon did not dis­close when the Fresh clos­ures would take place, with UK law man­dat­ing it under­take a con­sulta­tion period with employ­ees. All of its stores are in or around Lon­don.The decision to shut its Fresh stores comes as Amazon has struggled to mount a ser­i­ous chal­lenge against incum­bent super­mar­kets such as Tesco and Sains­bury’s.

▸ US interest rate cut expect­a­tions push gold to another record high▸ Gilt yields fall as data shows UK private sec­tor activ­ity grows less than expec­ted▸ Argen­tine peso gains before Trump talks with Milei over eco­nomic sup­portGold prices hit another record high yes­ter­day as traders waited for a speech by the US Fed­eral Reserve chair for clues about the cent­ral bank's next move.The price of bul­lion rose to as much as $3,790 a troy ounce before drop­ping back to about $3,775 later in the day.The pre­cious metal has punched through a series of record high prices in recent weeks, fuelled by the expect­a­tion of interest rate cuts in the US.Investor nerves about infla­tion and bal­loon­ing pub­lic debt in the world's biggest eco­nomy — coupled with Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump's threats to the inde­pend­ence of the Fed — have also sparked con­cerns about the viab­il­ity of dol­lar assets as a store of value.

Nvidia has announced plans to invest up to $100bn in OpenAI in return for a sig­ni­fic­ant stake in the Chat­GPT maker, as part of a joint effort to build data centres for arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence.OpenAI is plan­ning to buy mil­lions of Nvidia’s AI pro­cessors as part of a deal to deploy up to 10 gigawatts of capa­city, the two tech groups said yes­ter­day, the equi­val­ent out­put of 10 nuc­lear react­ors.Should Nvidia com­mit the full $100bn, it would be the largest-ever invest­ment in a private com­pany, reflect­ing the vast resources the $4.5tn chip giant wields as the world’s most valu­able com­pany. The con­tract will ensure that Nvidia stays at the heart of OpenAI’s products for years to come.The deal could gen­er­ate hun­dreds of bil­lions of dol­lars in rev­enue for Nvidia, whose shares rose about 4 per cent. But the groups did not spe­cify a time­frame for the deploy­ment and much of the details remain uncer­tain.

▸ Wall Street extends record-break­ing streak des­pite visa fears for Big Tech▸ Treas­ury bonds exper­i­ence mod­est selling as traders await Fed com­ment­ary▸ Dol­lar retreats against rivals and European stocks edge down­wardsWall Street stocks exten­ded a record­break­ing streak yes­ter­day des­pite warn­ings that Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump's new visa rule change could hit big US tech­no­logy com­pan­ies.The pres­id­ent announced late on Fri­day that he planned to raise the applic­a­tion fee for a H-1B for­eign worker visa to $100,000.Tech com­pan­ies in Sil­icon Val­ley — whose sur­ging share prices have car­ried US stock mar­kets to new highs in recent years — have typ­ic­ally relied heav­ily on the visa to hire skilled engin­eers, sci­ent­ists and coders from over­seas.Wall Street's blue-chip S&P 500 index was up 0.1 per cent by lunch­time in New York while the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index had risen 0.2 per cent.

Sir Keir Starmer is explor­ing pro­pos­als to abol­ish some visa fees for top global tal­ent at a time when the US has moved sharply in the other dir­ec­tion.The prime min­is­ter’s “global tal­ent task force” is work­ing on ideas to lure to the UK the world’s best sci­ent­ists, aca­dem­ics and digital experts, as it seeks to stim­u­late eco­nomic growth.One option being con­sidered is abol­ish­ing visa charges for the global elite, accord­ing to people briefed on the dis­cus­sions inside Num­ber 10 and the Treas­ury. “We’re talk­ing about the sort of people who have atten­ded the world’s top five uni­versit­ies or have won pres­ti­gi­ous prizes,” said one offi­cial. “We’re kick­ing around the idea of cut­ting costs to zero.”The reforms were being dis­cussed in Num­ber 10 and the Treas­ury before the Trump admin­is­tra­tion announced last week it would increase to $100,000 the applic­a­tion fee for an H-1B visa, which is relied on by US tech groups.

Nvidia has agreed to invest $5bn in its strug­gling rival Intel as part of a deal to develop chips for PCs and data centres, the latest reorder­ing of the tech industry spurred by arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence.Intel shares were up more than 22 per cent by yes­ter­day after­noon after the announce­ment, which unites two of Sil­icon Val­ley’s longest-run­ning rivals.The deal comes a month after the US gov­ern­ment agreed to take a 10 per cent stake in Intel, as Don­ald Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion tries to secure the future of Amer­ican chip man­u­fac­tur­ing.But the pair’s announce­ment makes no ref­er­ence to Nvidia using Intel’s foundry to pro­duce its chips. Intel’s man­u­fac­tur­ing busi­ness, which is los­ing bil­lions of dol­lars a year and strug­gling to secure external cus­tom­ers, is seen as vital to US tech­no­lo­gical sov­er­eignty.Intel, which has also largely failed to gain a foothold in the boom­ing AI server mar­ket, lost its crown as the most valu­able chip­maker to Nvidia in 2020.

▸ Wall Street climbs after Fed makes first rate cut since last Decem­ber▸ Long-term Treas­ur­ies fall after cent­ral bank nudges infla­tion fore­casts higher▸ Equity indices across the Atlantic also rise fol­low­ing US decisionGlobal stocks rose yes­ter­day after the US Fed­eral Reserve cut its bench­mark interest rate for the first time since last Decem­ber.The US cent­ral bank lowered the bench­mark fed­eral funds tar­get range by a quarter of a per­cent­age point to 4-4.25 per cent on Wed­nes­day after­noon, as traders had over­whelm­ingly expec­ted.Wall Street's blue-chip S&P 500 index was 0.7 per cent higher by early after­noon trad­ing in New York.“From [Fed chair] Pow­ell's com­ments, we've learned that they now put more weight on the labour mar­ket and growth rather than infla­tion,” said Max Kettner, head of multi-asset strategy at HSBC.Kettner added that this meant “the best of both worlds . . . still strong activ­ity data and a strong earn­ings out­look but a weak­en­ing labour mar­ket prompt­ing rate cuts”.

The Fed­eral Reserve yes­ter­day cut interest rates by a quarter point for the first time this year, as the US cent­ral bank sig­nalled fur­ther reduc­tions on the back of labour mar­ket weak­ness.The rate-set­ting Fed­eral Open Mar­ket Com­mit­tee lowered the bench­mark fed­eral funds tar­get range to 4 per cent to 4.25 per cent, match­ing Wall Street expect­a­tions.The decision was not unan­im­ous, with Stephen Miran, a Don­ald Trump ally sworn in to the Fed board on Tues­day, back­ing a big­ger, half-point, cut.“The labour mar­ket is really cool­ing off,” Fed chief Jay Pow­ell said, point­ing to data show­ing that hir­ing had fallen in recent months even as the job­less rate has remained low. Pow­ell added: “The risks of higher and more per­sist­ent infla­tion have become a little less.”Eco­nomic pro­jec­tions released along­side the Fed decision showed most of the bank’s top lead­ers expect at least two fur­ther cuts by the end of this year. The 10-year Treas­ury yield, which moves with growth and infla­tion expect­a­tions, fell to its low­est since April, down 0.03 per­cent­age points 3.999 per cent.

▸ Ban on Chinese com­pan­ies buy­ing Nvidia AI chips pushes Wall Street lower▸ Euro slips against dol­lar but remains close to highest levels in 4 years▸ FTSE 100 stocks, ster­ling and gilts edge upwards after UK infla­tion dataUS tech­no­logy stocks took Wall Street lower yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a ban on Chinese com­pan­ies buy­ing Nvidia's AI chips.The Fin­an­cial Times repor­ted that China's inter­net reg­u­lator had banned the coun­try's biggest tech­no­logy com­pan­ies from buy­ing arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence chips from US semi­con­ductor giant Nvidia.Nvidia shares were down 3 per cent by early after­noon in New York, with the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index 0.5 per cent lower.The blue-chip S&P 500 index dipped 0.1 per cent ahead of a highly anti­cip­ated US Fed­eral Reserve meet­ing tak­ing place later in the trad­ing ses­sion, although stocks remained around record highs.