Finance News

Japan's cost to borrow hit 3%, a first since 1996. Governments everywhere now pay more. →

Japan's ten-year government bond yield reached 3% on Tuesday for the first time in thirty years, inside a bond selloff that lifted borrowing costs in Australia, Germany, France and the United States at the same time. Nobody sold in a panic. One of the world's biggest pools of savings simply stopped buying as much.

The US government owes $40 trillion. This week it hosts the other big economies, and it is the one making demands. →

Finance chiefs from the 20 largest economies meet on Monday and Tuesday in Asheville, in the United States. The host, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, wants them to cut their trade gaps, raise barriers against Chinese goods and end all business with Iran - while asking them not to worry about American debt that passed $40 trillion this month.

The Pentagon is buying 35% of a Venezuelan oil company, and paying almost nothing for it →

Exxon and ConocoPhillips looked at the same 17 oil fields and would not put money in. Washington took a stake instead, through an instrument that costs it nothing up front.

The Fed chair broke a month of silence. A September rate rise went from a third to better than even. →

Kevin Warsh told Jackson Hole the Fed has work to do on inflation. Traders moved the odds of a September rise to 55.7% from 35.4%, the dollar had its best day in ten weeks, and gold fell 3.2%.

Company profits took a record 13.2% of the US economy. Wages took the smallest share ever. →

American firms captured more of what the country produced last quarter than at any point on record, while pay took its lowest share of national income ever. The share prices cushioning households are a claim on exactly that gap.

Inflation stuck at 3.7% for a 65th month. Korea raised again before the last rise landed. →

America's inflation gauge refused to fall in July, and traders moved from expecting nothing to pricing a 44% chance of a rate rise on 16 September. South Korea did not wait for evidence at all: it raised for a second meeting running, hours before the Jackson Hole gathering opened.

The US taxed $20bn of Canadian goods at 50%. Canada answers on September 8. →

Trade talks with America's second-biggest partner collapsed on Friday, the tariffs landed on Saturday, and the Canadian dollar was the worst big-currency performer on Monday. Trump has now threatened 50% on every car and truck too.

Alibaba's profit fell 75%, its spending rose 75%, and it just asked for $10.2bn more →

The market marked the shares down to almost exactly the price of the new stock. Nobody can yet tell whether the AI money is being built into something or burned - and that is the whole argument.

Two governments cleared the biggest media deal. Twelve US states did not, and Paramount asked to talk. →

Paramount's takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery already has federal and European approval. Twelve state attorneys general are still in the way, and only one side is paying for the delay.

The bond rescue faded in two days, and the bill landed on the dollar →

Washington's move to hold down long-term borrowing costs stopped working almost immediately. The dollar slid to a three-month low, gold rose about 5% on the week, and the $40 trillion underneath never moved.

Walmart's slowest quarter since the pandemic, and the cheapest credit since 2021 →

America's biggest retailer posted its weakest sales growth in over six years and its shares fell about 9%. On the same afternoon, five lenders turned pools of American household debt into bonds, one of them at the smallest risk premium it has paid in nearly five years.

Washington steadied its own bond market, and everyone else's currency moved →

The US Treasury doubled the bonds it buys back, long-term yields fell and the dollar hit a three-month low. Within hours China, Indonesia and India were each answering the same question about their own money.

The buyers of America's debt are asking a higher price →

The 30-year Treasury yield hit a two-decade high as fresh data showed foreign investors and central banks stepping back. The world's biggest borrower is paying more, and the dollar fell anyway.

Borrowing for the bill, from lenders that are not banks →

Pay-later apps now finance electricity, rent and tax bills as US card debt sits at a record, while governments pay the most to borrow since the 2008 crisis.

Japan's growth misses, and the world's cheapest money stays cheap →

Japan grew at half the expected pace and the yen stayed weak, because the gap between American and Japanese interest rates just refused to close. That gap is the engine under a huge amount of borrowed money.

The chip maker arranged the loans so its customers could buy the chips →

Nvidia lined up $500 billion of financing for its own buyers, while the promises holding up global finance got a hard look.

The shopper pulled back, and long-term borrowing got dearer anyway →

American shoppers cut spending for the first time since October, and traders quietly dropped their bets on another rate rise. Yet the government just paid the most to borrow for thirty years since 2001. The short end of the money market softened this week. The long end did the opposite.

The stock market hit a record. The market that lends the cash is nervous. →

The S&P 500 closed at an all-time high on cool inflation data, yet the credit market that funds companies day to day is flashing the opposite signal. Barclays measured the split; leveraged borrowers are giving up protections just to roll their debt; even the US government is paying the most to borrow in 25 years.

A pay rise despite the outage, and the machinery built to watch the bosses →

Telstra's CEO got a $700,000 raise the year a national outage hit millions. This week, regulators, activists and proxy advisers all pushed on how the hired hands are watched.

The same earnings season lifts some companies and sinks others →

Rolls-Royce hit a record high as profits jumped far faster than sales, while a US gas exporter fell 7% on a small price dip - the tell of a business built on heavy fixed costs.

The Fed's tough talk meets its first real test →

Kevin Warsh promised to break inflation. This week's price data will show whether he means it enough to raise rates he'd rather not - and markets are already betting on his nerve.

The Fed stops promising to catch the market →

As stocks sit at records before a key inflation reading, new Fed chair Kevin Warsh is dismantling the market's old assumption that the central bank will always step in to break its fall.

The calm at the top, and the leverage building beneath it →

Stocks hit records and fear gauges near a 2026 low, even as leveraged trades unwind at the edges.

Jobs shrank in July, and the market cheered →

US employers unexpectedly cut 23,000 jobs in July, and Wall Street rallied - because a weaker job market means the Fed is less likely to raise rates.

The great belt-tightening, and who feels it →

A cost-of-living squeeze is pushing American households to spend less. Companies are cutting outlooks and jobs, hiring has gone quiet, and the money that is moving is flowing into deals.

Digital dollars go mainstream, outside the bank rulebook →

Stablecoins - crypto tokens pegged to the dollar - are moving from crypto trading into everyday money, run by tech and payments firms rather than banks. Circle's coin grew 19% last quarter as Visa, Mastercard and BlackRock pile in. The catch: the same job as a bank deposit, minus the bank's rulebook and its safety net.

The winning bid, and the price of winning it →

Prologis pays a 39% premium to buy UK rival Segro in a busy deal week, while a South Korean casino shows what a bold bet costs when it misses.

The trades everyone piled into together start to wobble →

An unusual US-Japan move to prop up the yen squeezes the world's biggest crowded bet, as Korea and China unwind leverage and bulls admit the AI boom ran hot.

The AI selloff, and the money no one can see inside →

A China chip shock drove the Nasdaq to its worst month since March 2025 - and exposed how little anyone can verify inside the AI economy.

Credit markets start pricing risk again →

Loan investors are pushing back after years of lending to strong and weak borrowers on near-identical terms, while a silent Fed, a jobs report, and a rare currency truce set the week.

Markets set records as inflation quietly ticks back up →

Big Tech added nearly $1.5 trillion this week and stock indexes hit new highs, even as US and European inflation held above target and the Fed's own officials split over whether rates are too low.

Japan and Korea move to prop up their currencies →

A rare joint intervention pushed the yen to a two-month high, as US markets split over AI and two big crypto names swung to losses.

The Fed held rates - and the bond market stopped believing it →

A new Fed chair kept quiet, the market read silence as weakness on inflation, and long-term borrowing costs spiked to their highest since 2007 on their own.

The bank's best quarter, and who got the biggest slice →

Barclays grew its bonus pool almost a third off a rate windfall, owners pushed back on managers across the market, and the AI trade cracked again.