Finance, in brief

Rate rises this week

The market odds of a US rate rise on Wednesday reached 87%, up from 58% a week earlier. [11] The Bank of Japan, Japan's central bank, is expected to raise its rate on Friday to 1.25%, the highest since 1995. [9] The US government's ten-year borrowing rate touched 4.99% last week, the highest since 2023. [10]

Oil above $100

A projectile hit a ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, the UK's maritime trade agency said. [19] Saudi Arabia shut its East-West pipeline, which carries 4 to 5 million barrels a day, after a drone attack. [19] US wholesale prices rose 5.4% in the year to August, with oil and gas the reason. [22]

The yen climbing

The yen reached 152.89 to the dollar on 8 September, its strongest since February. [17] Speculators now hold a net bet in favour of the yen for the first time since February, US futures data showed on Friday. [18] Citi, a big US bank, has already closed one bet tied to the yen before Japan's rate meeting on 18 September. [16]

Paying for the AI build-out

Oracle plans to raise $40bn this year in debt and shares to build data centres. [7] There is a shortage of the turbine parts made by Berkshire Hathaway's Precision Castparts, which are also used in the gas turbines that power AI data centres. [28] Citi says investment linked to AI is holding up growth despite the energy shock. [15]

One pressure seen across the day runs through Finance too.

• Oil and gas still stuck behind the straitHigh ↑ · seen in 3 beats→

1. 1Oracle's founder filed a plan to sell $7.5bn of his shares. One day later the company said the plan is cancelled and nothing was sold.
2. 2Three central banks decide this week
3. 3A ship is hit in Hormuz; Iran meets the Gulf on Monday
4. 4Speculators bet on the yen for the first time since February
5. 5Fuel prices are rising faster than crude

Watch whether Oracle ever says why the plan was dropped, and what Wednesday's US rate decision does to the cost of the $40bn it still means to raise this year.

The US central bank meets on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The market puts an 87% chance on a rate rise, up from 58% a week earlier, after Friday's inflation figure of 3.4%. [11]

It would be the first US rise since 2023. [14]

The Bank of England is not expected to raise on Thursday, but three of its officials voted for a rise in July. [9]

The Bank of Japan will probably raise on Friday, to 1.25%, the highest since 1995. [9] Citi expects a US rise paired with softer forecasts for later. [12]

Analysts told AFP that the credibility of Kevin Warsh, the US central bank's chair, is on the line. [13]

A US rise makes a new mortgage or car loan dearer for Americans within weeks.

A Japanese rise pays Japanese savers more at home, which is part of why the yen has been climbing.

The UK's maritime trade agency said a projectile struck a vessel passing through the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday. The damage and the state of the crew were not known. [19]

The strait has been largely closed by the war for six months. [19]

Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline carries 4 to 5 million barrels a day to the Red Sea, about 4% to 5% of the world's oil.

Saudi Arabia shut it after a drone attack that it and Iraq said came from Iraq. [19] Trump said on Saturday that Iran was probably behind the attack. [20]

Iran meets the Gulf Arab states in Oman on Monday about the strait. An Iranian official played down any breakthrough. [19]

Oil above $100 is the reason US wholesale prices rose 5.4% in a year, and the reason a rate rise is expected this week. [22]

The Gulf ministers' meeting was first reported by the Financial Times on Friday. [24]

Also seen in World and Climate.

US futures data released late on Friday showed speculators holding a net bet in favour of the yen for the first time since 24 February. [18]

They held 10,796 contracts in favour in the week to 8 September. A week earlier they held 92,227 against, a swing of more than 100,000 in one week. [18]

The yen reached 152.89 to the dollar on 8 September, its strongest since February. [17]

It had fallen to 163.99 in July, a four-decade low, before Japan's and the US governments stepped in to buy it. [17]

It has risen this month on expectations that the Bank of Japan will raise rates faster. [17]

Japanese savers put money abroad for years because rates at home paid almost nothing.

A rate of 1.25% on Friday would be Japan's highest since 1995, and money that went abroad for a return has a reason to come home. [9]

Larry Ellison knows more about Oracle than any outsider, so a filing that he might sell $7.5bn of his own shares is read as a clue to what he knows.

A founder selling his own shares loses money if the shares rise afterwards, so investors weigh it heavily.

The Friday futures data counts money actually placed, not opinions given, which is why one week's swing of 100,000 contracts is read as a change of mind about Japan's rates

Words with no oil behind them: Bob McNally of Rapidan says the market's willingness to sell on talk of peace is fading, after the June memorandum with Iran fell through

Shipping bullion out of New York is costly and slow, so it is read as a judgment on the US in a way that a speech about alliances never would be

A real price paid by a buyer with its own money is what Barron's uses to put a value of $100bn on Berkshire's rival unit, which Berkshire has not sold

Oracle has not said which this was, so the signal is loud and often wrong.

Ellison sees Oracle's orders, but not whether the AI those orders serve will ever pay for itself.

A person whose pension fund owns Oracle shares sees only the filing, and sees it last.

Brent oil, the world benchmark, settled at $104.61 on Friday, down 2.8% on the day but sharply up on the week. [20]

US crude topped $102 on Thursday, its highest close since May and about 50% above its summer low of $68.55. [21]

Bloomberg reports that diesel, heating fuel and other refined fuels are under even more pressure than crude, and that central banks are now watching refining margins. [23]

In the US, higher diesel costs have already shown up as added fees on online orders and parcels. [22]

Rebecca Babin of CIBC Private Wealth said Chinese refiners ramping up could tighten the market further. [21]

Bob McNally of Rapidan Energy, a consultancy, said the market's willingness to sell off on talk of peace is fading, after a US-Iran memorandum signed on 17 June collapsed. [21]

Russia, long one of the world's biggest exporters of refined fuel, imported a record amount of oil products in August.

India supplied 70% of it, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which tracks Russia's energy exports. [25] Ukrainian drone strikes have hit Russian refining capacity.

Petrol made up 74% of Russia's oil-product imports, against an average of 6% between 2023 and 2025. [25]

Russia's revenue from exported fuel products fell 32% to 78 million euros a day, the lowest since the invasion of Ukraine. [25]

Its Urals crude still sold for an average of $69.90 a barrel, up 23%, well above the $44.10 cap set by the G7 and the EU. [25]

India buys Russian crude, refines it, and now sells the petrol back to Russia.

Russia was paid $69.90 a barrel for its crude in August, and the G7 cap is $44.10. [25]

Tata Sons is the private holding company at the top of the Tata group, India's biggest business group.

In 2022 India's central bank classed it as an 'upper-layer' shadow lender, a company that lends like a bank without being one, because its balance sheet passed 1.5 trillion rupees ($15.7bn). [26]

Such companies must list their shares within three years. [26] Tata Sons applied in 2024 to give up its lending licence and cleared its debts to avoid that. [26]

New rules from 1 July cover any holding company whose group companies borrow from the public, as Tata Capital does. [26]

The latest letter from the regulator makes it harder still to hold out. [26]

A listing would open the accounts of India's largest business group to outside shareholders, and could limit its freedom to move cash from its profitable businesses into newer, loss-making ones. [26]

Mark Carney, Canada's prime minister, has told his special envoy to Europe to scope out the closest ties possible short of full membership of the EU or its single market.

The Wall Street Journal reported it at the weekend. [27]

For months Carney has held private talks with almost every major European leader on plugging Canada, a country of 41 million people, more deeply into the 27-nation club. [27]

The push began soon after Canada and the US fell into the worst trade war in their modern history. [27]

Carney has told aides it means reorienting an economy the US has dominated for half a century. [27]

European leaders have half-jokingly started calling Canada the EU's newest member. A threat from the US president to make Canada the 51st state is pushing it toward Europe instead. [27]

GE Aerospace, the jet-engine maker, agreed this week to pay $11.75bn for Consolidated Precision Products.

It is one of the few rivals to Precision Castparts, which Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway bought for $37.2bn in 2016. [28] Barron's calls that price high.

Using the same multiple, it estimates Precision Castparts is worth about $100bn, nearly three times what Berkshire paid. [28]

Six years ago Berkshire wrote $11bn off the purchase, and Buffett wrote that he had paid too much. [28]

There is now a shortage of the complex metal parts the company makes for engine turbine blades. The same parts go into the gas turbines that power AI data centres. [28]

A price paid for one company puts a new value on its rival, which was never sold. The parts shortage is where the AI data-centre boom meets the aircraft industry. [28]

The United States is short about 1.2 million homes, according to the National Association of Home Builders, the industry's trade body.

Nearly 300,000 construction jobs were unfilled at the end of 2025, and the industry needs about 740,000 new workers a year. [29]

Labour shortages cost builders about $11bn a year and add about two months to a build. [29] The gains so far are in factories, not on building sites.

At one factory of Sekisui Heim, a Japanese housebuilder, robots lifted output from 55 homes a day to 65 with 20 fewer operators.

The company expects the machines to pay for themselves in about three years. [29]

Fewer workers per house is the only way the numbers close. The cost of a shortage of plumbers and electricians lands on the price of a new home. [29]

The Dutch central bank moved 86 tons of gold out of the United States and Canada last week, calling the move protection against 'extreme systemic risks'. [30]

France has already moved all of its gold out of New York, and Germany has debated doing the same. [30]

Polls in ten countries found majorities in only two, Hungary and Poland, still see the US as a reliable partner. [30]

Axios notes the dollar's dominance remains unthreatened and the US is still the top destination for foreign students. [30]

Germany, Italy and Spain now face renewed pushes at home over whether to keep their gold in the US. [30]

Sweden votes on Sunday in a parliamentary election. Polls this week gave the centre-left opposition a narrow lead over the ruling right-wing bloc, pointing to a likely change of government. [32]

Sweden's economy is growing faster than most of Europe, its companies Volvo, IKEA and Spotify remain global powerhouses, and it has produced more billionaires than almost any country its size. [31]

Gun violence has fallen after years of rising. [31] If the right wins, it has promised for the first time to give the far right a share of power. [31]

Voters in a rich economy in good shape are still on course to change government, because the issues that matter to them have shifted away from migration. [31]