Finance News

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.

The Fed's close call, and the Big Tech week riding on it →

For once no one is sure what the Fed will do Wednesday - a hold at 3.75% is the bet, but a growing minority sees a surprise hike, just as Amazon, Microsoft and Apple report and the whole market waits on the cost of money.

Nvidia moves to backstop $250bn of OpenAI's buildout - as Wall Street cools on AI bills →

A chipmaker offers to stand behind its biggest customer's borrowing, oil skids on an Iran pause, and the Fed meets under pressure to hike.

The bills that won't come down - inflation eases, but groceries and gas don't →

Official inflation is cooling, yet the prices people actually pay keep rising, and a fresh wave of tariffs is adding to the load.

The AI buildout meets the bond market — and $1.2 trillion it keeps off the books →

Moody's warns the tech giants' AI spending is straining their credit, bond investors are charging more to lend, and much of the debt is kept off the balance sheet — as yields climb, oil holds near $100, and a Fed decision looms.

The consumer-finance watchdog is set to be run by a man from a bank it polices →

Trump's pick to lead the CFPB is a Capital One credit-card compliance executive, testifying with an "open mind" about firing most of the agency's remaining staff.

Google's blowout quarter, and the market flinched at the bill →

A record cloud result came stapled to a $205bn spending plan — and the stock fell. Oil broke $95 on Red Sea tanker attacks, the yen sank to a 40-year low, and the EU cleared the Paramount–Warner merger.

Wall Street's biggest bank says don't buy long bonds — as rich-world debt hits a record $75.8 trillion →

Jamie Dimon won't touch long-term government bonds, and a ratings agency says developed-country debt will reach a record this year. Meanwhile chips lift the market, brokers bank a trading boom, and the yen falls to a four-decade low.

Americans are borrowing more than they have in five years — and a third still can't find $2,000 →

A New York Fed survey shows credit applications at their highest since 2021, even as a third of households say they'd struggle with a $2,000 surprise. The market, up 10% this year, looks calm — the balance sheets underneath do not.

Oil passes $90 even as the Gulf ships more of it — and the rate debate turns →

Brent broke $90 on a ninth night of US strikes on Iran, capping a 15.9% week. The odd part: Gulf exports just hit their highest level since the war began. Traders are pricing the strait, not the barrels.

Two governments go shopping: Italy's state moves to own the phone network, Britain seizes its last steelworks →

In one weekend, Italy's state-owned post office won board backing for a $14.9bn takeover of Telecom Italia, Britain finished nationalising British Steel, and China warned of retaliation. Strategic industry is being pulled back in-house — for reasons that have little to do with profit.

Short sellers pocket $5 billion as SpaceX slides — a rare week when betting down paid →

SpaceX shares fell below their IPO price and short sellers profited about $5 billion, while money edged toward bonds and the Gulf kept a floor under oil.

As chip stocks slide again, regulators move against the leveraged funds amplifying the market's swings →

Memory-chip stocks fell for a second week and the AI rally wobbled — and underneath the swings sits a fast-growing kind of fund built to double or triple each day's move. South Korea just moved to rein it in, while Fed officials floated raising rates and Netflix, Uber and Visa each made headlines.

A rally only half the market joined — cool inflation lifts Big Tech, but the split is the story →

Wholesale prices unexpectedly fell in June, easing fears of another rate rise and sending Big Tech higher. But the gains were lopsided: money piled into the AI winners while IBM had its worst day ever, and Wall Street's banks cashed in on the deal wave.

The new Fed chair stops telling markets what comes next — and asks them to sit with the uncertainty →

Kevin Warsh used his first testimony to Congress to end the Fed's 15-year habit of signalling its next move, even as fresh data showed inflation falling for the first time since 2020. Banks posted record profits; IBM cratered; China's growth cooled.

Twelve states sue to block the $110bn Paramount–Warner Bros deal — weeks after Washington cleared it →

A dozen state attorneys general moved to stop the year's biggest media merger on antitrust grounds, splitting from a federal government that had already waved it through — while oil, a possible Fed rate hike, and a chip-stock reversal kept markets on edge.

The week the banks go first — earnings season opens as the inflation numbers land →

Big US banks kick off earnings this week alongside fresh inflation data and the new Fed chair's first testimony — the first hard read on how households are really doing. Oil jumped over 3% on US–Iran strikes, but stocks barely flinched.

The biggest US housing bill in decades becomes law — a bet on building, not just cheaper loans →

A rare bipartisan law aims to fix housing by making it easier to build, not just easier to borrow. Plus the everyday price squeeze it answers, and a softer job market.

Apollo wins the bidding war for easyJet — a £5.7bn takeover built mostly on borrowed money →

A US private-equity firm gazumped a rival to buy the low-cost airline, earnings season opened with Delta holding fares high, and a UN report showed 113 poor countries now spend more repaying debt than teaching their children.

US home prices hit a record high — while fewer people can actually buy one →

June home sales fell instead of rising, yet prices set an all-time record. A frozen market, a 6.49% mortgage, and a Fed now more likely to raise rates than cut them mean relief isn't coming soon.

Trump calls the Iran ceasefire 'over' — and the price of borrowing money at home jumps with the price of oil →

A few words at a NATO summit sent oil up, stocks down, and quietly rewrote what markets expect from the Fed — from rate cuts to a possible hike. Here's the chain, from a Gulf strait to your mortgage.

Inflation is cooling, so why isn't money getting cheaper? The AI boom is eating the world's savings →

Falling inflation used to mean cheaper loans. Not anymore. A wave of borrowing — Amazon's $25 billion for AI, governments' deficits — is keeping rates high even as price pressures fade, and mortgages are feeling it.

A flood of new stock is heading for the market — and this week is the first test →

SK Hynix's $28bn Nasdaq debut, SpaceX lockups worth $800bn, and a wave of IPO shares coming unlocked all point at the same thing — more shares chasing the same money. Plus Fed minutes, a Broadcom-led rally, and a fresh bitcoin sale.

Samsung's profit is set to jump 18-fold and SK Hynix wants $28bn from Wall Street — the AI memory boom is now carrying whole economies →

The two companies that make most of the world's advanced memory chips are riding a wave of AI demand so large it is reshaping their profits, their listing plans, and South Korea's public finances.

'Trump accounts' go live: every eligible newborn gets $1,000 — and Wall Street gets a customer for life →

The US launched federally-seeded investment accounts for children, defaulting deposits into an S&P 500 fund. Plus: Trump allies renew their push to remake the Fed, Uber freezes a European expansion to chase a takeover, and the diamond market keeps sliding.

Oil is drowning in its own supply — and the producers keep pumping →

A real glut is finally swamping the oil market as Hormuz reopens and OPEC+ readies another output hike. Citi sees Brent near $60 by Christmas. Meanwhile a weak US jobs number all but seals a Fed pause, and dealmakers post their best half-year in ages.

The US unemployment rate fell to 4.2% — because 720,000 people stopped looking for work →

June's jobs report looked like good news on one line and bad news on every other. Hiring nearly halved, past months were revised down, and the falling jobless rate hides a shrinking workforce.