Finance, in brief

India's central bank raised its main interest rate, the one it charges banks for overnight loans, from 5.25% to 5.5% on Wednesday. [1][2] It is the first rise since February 2023. [3]

The Reserve Bank of India also changed its stance to 'calibrated tightening', which means more rises may follow, and it said rate cuts are off the table for now. [1]

Governor Sanjay Malhotra said the fresh flare-up of war in the Middle East has hurt business confidence around the world, and that the outlook for prices is worse than last year. [1]

Prices in India rose 4.82% in the year to August, up from 4.45% in July. [2] That is above the bank's 4% target for the third month running. [2]

India buys most of its energy abroad, so oil above $100 raises both its prices and its bill for imports. [4][1]

The rupee fell past 96 to the US dollar this week. [5] Foreign investors have been selling Indian shares for seven weeks in a row. [1]

The bank had cut its rate by 1.25 percentage points in 2025 and then held it at 5.25% for four meetings. [2][4]

India's economy grew 7.8% in April to June, faster than the 7% the bank had forecast. [2] Strong growth gave it room to raise rates. [2][5]

The bank's committee said it sees little sign yet that Indians are spending too much, but price rises are starting to spread beyond fuel and food. [1][6]

Shares in carmakers, property firms and banks fell after the decision, and the Sensex index dropped more than 540 points to 72,520. [1]

Most economists had expected the rise: 20 of 21 in an Economic Times poll and 35 of 61 in a Reuters poll. [2][7] Analysts said markets had already expected it. [6]

IDFC First Bank's chief economist, Gaura Sengupta, expects about 0.75 percentage points of rises in all through February. [5]

Why it matters. The next test is whether a second rise follows: some forecasts put the rate at 5.75% to 6% by March 2027, and the price of oil will weigh on how fast. [7]

The US bought $105.6bn more from other countries than it sold to them in August, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday. [19] That gap, the trade deficit, grew 13.7% in a month. [19] It is the widest since March 2025, just before Trump's big tariffs began. [19][14] Imports reached a record $420.8bn, while exports rose only 1.4% to $315.2bn. [14][20] Chips for AI data centres, oil and gold drove much of the rise, and imports are 28.4% higher than a year ago. [14][21]

Why it matters. Tariffs were meant to shrink this gap. It is growing because American companies are spending heavily on computer chips, most of them made in Asia. [14] Goldman Sachs cut its estimate of US growth this quarter to 3.1%, because imports count against it. [19]

The S&P 500, an index of 500 big US companies, closed at a record 7,819 on Tuesday. [22] It was its first record close since August and its 28th this year. [22] The Nasdaq, an index full of tech companies, also closed at a record. [21] The rise came a day after the US ten-year borrowing rate passed 5.3%, its highest since 2002. [11] Six of the seven giant AI-linked companies rose, and Amazon gained the most, 1.95%. [21][23] Smaller companies lagged behind. [21]

Why it matters. The climb rests on a handful of very large tech firms. [11] JJ Kinahan of Cboe, which runs share and options exchanges, said those few stocks now decide which way both indexes move each day. [11]

US government borrowing rates stayed near their highest in almost 25 years on Tuesday, after a long sell-off of Treasury bonds. [24] Several big commercial property deals are now in doubt because buyers want better terms. [24] Weaker companies are paying much more to borrow. [24] Shares that pay steady dividends, such as power and property companies, have fallen, because a safe bond now pays more. [25] The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate is above 7.5%, against 5.99% just before the Iran war. [26]

Why it matters. On a median-priced home of about $450,000, that adds roughly $300 to the monthly payment since early this year. [26] Goldman Sachs economists warned the high rates could cut US growth by 0.2 percentage points next year. [24]

Brent crude, the world's main oil price, rose 0.9% to $101.51 a barrel early on Wednesday. [9] On Tuesday it dipped to $98.48 as more Gulf oil reached the sea, then climbed back to about $100. [27][28] US forecasters say a storm in the Gulf of Mexico will become the year's first Atlantic hurricane within two days. [9] The sea area in its path pumps 15% of US crude, and refineries in the US Gulf states make about half the country's fuel. [9] Houthi fighters from Yemen also attacked two Saudi airports, at Jazan and Najran. [29][30]

Why it matters. Mukesh Sahdev, an oil analyst at X Analysts, said prices will stay near $100 unless the fighting calms. [9] US crude stocks fell by 2.09m barrels last week, industry figures showed. [9]

Nearly 20 commercial ships, most of them oil tankers, were attacked in the past month in or near the Strait of Hormuz, a group of US-allied navies says. [18] Hormuz is the narrow sea lane between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. [31] Iran hit about two of every 100 ships that crossed it last quarter, said Windward, a ship-tracking firm. [18] At least nine sailors have died there since July, says the UN's shipping agency. [18] On Tuesday drones also struck two tankers in the Black Sea, the first attack on shipping in Bulgaria's own sea zone. [32]

Why it matters. Crude through Hormuz averaged about 10.3m barrels a day last week, 23% below its pre-war level, the data firm Kpler says. [18] That flow now depends on US warships guarding a route along Oman's coast, and shipping and insurance costs have risen. [18]

Paramount completed its purchase of Warner Bros Discovery on Tuesday, a deal worth about $110bn. [33][34] The new company is called Skydance and is run by David Ellison, son of the Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. [33][35] It joins two of Hollywood's last five big old film studios, with HBO Max, CBS News and CNN. [35] To settle a lawsuit by 12 US states, it must release at least 30 films a year and keep independent editorial boards at CBS News and CNN. [35]

Why it matters. Joining HBO Max and Paramount+ into one service or bundle could cost subscribers more, the BBC reports. [34] A trustee will check the promises, and California's attorney general said he will go to court if they are broken. [35]

Trump signed an order on Monday letting truckers use red-dyed diesel, a fuel kept for farms and building sites that carries no highway tax. [36] He also put off collecting the federal diesel tax of 24.4 cents a gallon until the end of 2026. [36] He signed it at a rally in Nebraska, four weeks before the US midterm elections. [37][26] US diesel passed $6 a gallon for the first time in September. [36] The Trump administration says a trucker can save more than $100 a fill-up. [36]

Why it matters. Goldman Sachs says diesel will stay dear through 2027, because the world's refineries cannot make enough. [10] It expects diesel to cost more than $40 a barrel above crude in 2027, about twice the usual gap. [10]

Police have arrested 5,060 people in France since school protests began late last month, 87% of them under 18, the justice ministry said. [13] Students are protesting about teacher shortages and run-down school buildings. [13] The French government has little money to give. [13] Its 2027 budget aims to save EUR54bn, partly by freezing the pay of teachers and other public workers. [13] On Tuesday Marine Le Pen, who leads the polls for next year's presidential election, promised to bring the deficit under 3% within 18 months. [13][38]

Why it matters. France's ten-year borrowing rate has risen 1.29 percentage points this year, and the euro is at a 17-month low against the dollar. [13] Le Pen also promises higher pensions, and critics doubt her savings add up. [38][13]

France and Germany sent a joint paper on Monday asking the EU to be able to cut off countries that harm its industry from its shops and companies. [39][40] They did not name China, but the EU's trade deficit with China has reached a record EUR1bn a day. [40] The paper names car, chemical, medicine, aircraft and machine-tool makers as the industries being hit. [40] The EU's trade chief, Maros Sefcovic, holds talks in Beijing on Thursday and Friday, and EU leaders meet next week. [40]

Why it matters. Big European companies are cutting jobs, and Volkswagen alone plans to cut 100,000. [39] The European Commission set October as its deadline for clear results from China on the trade gap. [40]

QatarEnergy, Qatar's state energy company, has borrowed $3bn for five years from four Chinese banks, people who know of the deal told Bloomberg. [41][42] The lenders include Bank of China and ICBC, two of the country's biggest state banks. [42] The loan costs 0.5 percentage points over SOFR, a US rate for overnight borrowing. [41] Chinese banks lent a record $11.5bn to Gulf borrowers last year through shared bank loans, more than five times the year before. [41]

Why it matters. Qatar's economy is among the worst hit by the war: the World Bank expects it to shrink by 20.9% this year. [16] Chinese banks keep lending to some Gulf borrowers while the war goes on, about $2.3bn so far this year. [41]

The World Bank now expects the Middle East and North Africa to shrink by 2.1% this year because of the Iran war. [16] In April it had expected growth of 2.1%. [16] Gulf oil output fell from 26m barrels a day before the war to about 16m in March. [16] It expects the six Gulf states to shrink by 4.3% on average, Kuwait by 14.6% and Qatar by 20.9%, Qatar's worst year in five decades. [16] Qatar's gas output fell about 67% between March and July because its sites were damaged. [16]

Why it matters. Countries that buy oil, such as Egypt and Morocco, now have better forecasts than their oil-selling neighbours, the bank said. [16] Its chief economist for the region, Roberta Gatti, said the war's losses are landing there while other regions' forecasts go up. [16]

Britain's chancellor, John Healey, who runs the country's public money, plans to spend more than GBP1bn in this month's budget on lowering poorer households' energy bills, the Guardian reports. [43] The likely way is an extra GBP100 on top of the GBP150 Warm Home Discount for people on certain benefits. [43] Forecasts show the cap on energy prices could rise by as much as GBP442 in January because of the Iran war. [43] On Tuesday Healey told the bosses of Britain's big banks he had not decided whether to tax them more. [44]

Why it matters. He wants GBP4.7bn more for defence, and higher interest on government debt has used up the money he had set aside. [43] So taxes are likely to rise, and banks are one target, the Guardian reports. [43]

Australian consumer confidence fell 4.7% to 80.4 points in October, the Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey found. [12] Among people asked after Australia's central bank raised rates on 29 September, it was 67.2, the lowest since the late 1990s. [12] It was the Reserve Bank of Australia's fourth rise this year, and its rate is now the highest since 2011. [12] My Bui, an economist at AMP, said a typical household's weekly petrol bill is up A$20 since January. [12]

Why it matters. When confidence falls, spending per person tends to fall with it, Bui said. [12] People with mortgages were the gloomiest group, while renters' mood did not change. [12]

The number of foreigners working in Saudi Arabia fell by 16,000 in the three months to June, government figures show. [17] It is the first fall in more than two years, and it came mostly in building jobs. [17] State-controlled companies have cut staff or let contracts end as project budgets were cut. [17] NEOM, a giant planned city, has been scaled back. [17] Health insurance policies for foreigners did not grow at all in the first half of 2026. [17]

Why it matters. Unemployment among Saudi citizens has not changed, and surveys of company buyers point to hiring picking up again. [17] The war has also hurt the Gulf's name as a safe place to work. [17]

Informa, a London company that runs trade fairs and conferences, agreed to buy the events firm Clarion from the private-equity group Blackstone for GBP2.24bn. [45] Clarion runs more than 100 events, from the DSEI arms fair in London to Awesome Con, a comic-book show in Washington. [45] Informa will raise GBP940m by selling new shares to help pay for it. [45] It also plans to split off Taylor & Francis, its academic publisher, which made about $1bn last year. [45]

Why it matters. Informa makes more than a third of its sales in India, the Middle East and Asia, and the war forced it to move several Middle East events. [45] Its shares have not risen this year. [45]

Kalshi, a US website where people bet on future events, is adding three features to its election markets, a month before the midterms. [46] It will mark markets with less than $10,000 traded as low-volume, show trades live and publish a score of how accurate its odds were. [46] Separately, 'combo' bets, which pay only if several outcomes all happen, were more than half of Kalshi's counted trading in September. [47] Under the regulator's counting rules, a combo bet of a few cents can count as thousands of dollars of trading. [47]

Why it matters. Chris Park, a researcher who studies these markets, said combos let the sites claim a higher number with less real money behind it. [47] The sites count volume the way the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, their US regulator, tells them to. [47]

Daily trading in memecoins and stock tokens on Robinhood Chain jumped from almost nothing in July to $443m in early September, CryptoQuant data shows. [48] Robinhood Chain is a blockchain the trading app Robinhood launched this summer. [48] Memecoins are joke crypto tokens with no business behind them. [48] Trading has since fallen 96%. [48] About 26,000 new tokens were launched on the chain each day in September, and most are now worth almost nothing. [48]

Why it matters. A similar rush hit Arc, a new network from the stablecoin company Circle, on its first day of public trading. [48] Julio Moreno of CryptoQuant said such rushes pull money in, but most of the tokens will trend to zero. [48]

David Rush, a former senior CIA official, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to cheating the US government of about $194m. [49] He invented secret programmes and spent the money on 298 gold bars, four South Florida properties, watches and two BMWs. [49] About $145m went through a fake consulting company to buy homes and land in South Florida. [49][50] He also admitted sharing the identity of a secret source with a foreign government. [50]

Why it matters. His job let him approve the spending he himself had asked for, the court papers say. [49] He owes at least $195.4m back. [49]

Finland's environmental regulator ordered Google to stop preparing two data-centre sites, at Muhos and Kajaani, by 23 October. [15] They are part of a EUR13bn project in northern Finland. [15] A company working for Google cleared 330 hectares of forest at Muhos before the required environmental study was finished. [15] Google said it had fallen short of its own standards and will follow the regulator's guidance. [15]

Why it matters. Google has until next Wednesday to explain itself in writing, and the regulator may fine it if it does not comply. [15] A Finnish nature group blamed an overheated rush to build data centres. [15]

Amazon's Prime Video will be the only home of the Emmy Awards, the top US television prizes, for six years from 2027. [51] It will stream the show free in more than 240 countries, with no subscription needed. [51] The deal ends a system, in place since at least 1994, where the US networks ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC took turns to show it. [51] The price was not disclosed. [51]

Why it matters. Live events are moving from TV networks to streaming services as viewers cancel cable. [51] The Oscars move from ABC to YouTube in 2029. [51]

Iberdrola, a Spanish power company, overtook Florida's NextEra Energy on Tuesday as the world's most valuable power company, worth more than EUR141bn on the stock market. [52] Both have built large wind and solar farms. [52] Both want to sell power to data centres. [52] Iberdrola owns power businesses in Europe, North and South America, and Australia. [52]

Why it matters. NextEra could take back the top place if US regulators approve its $67bn merger with Dominion, another US power company. [52]

Russia's President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday letting UniCredit, an Italian bank, sell its Russian bank. [53] UniCredit has worked in Russia since 1989 and stayed after Russia's full invasion of Ukraine in 2022. [53] It will keep a small new bank for euro and dollar payments, and sell the rest to an investor based in the UAE. [53] Kommersant, a Russian newspaper, reported that the buyer represents Alfa Group, a business group on good terms with Russia's government. [53]

Why it matters. UniCredit expects the sale to cost it EUR3bn to EUR3.3bn, and hopes to finish it in the first half of 2027. [53] The European Central Bank has pressed UniCredit and Austria's Raiffeisen to shrink their Russian businesses. [53]

Abu Dhabi's crown prince and Jordan's King Abdullah broke ground on Monday on a railway to Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba. [54][55] The 403km line will carry 16m tonnes a year of phosphate and potash, minerals used in fertiliser, from the mines to the port. [54] It replaces truck convoys and an old freight line, and should cut transport costs by $40m a year. [54] Semafor puts the cost at $2.3bn and The National, a UAE newspaper, at $2.5bn. [54][55]

Why it matters. The UAE is building railways across the region. [54] Some are part of a planned trade route from India through the Middle East to Europe that would cross Jordan. [54]