Finance, in brief

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which lends to governments in trouble, now expects the world economy to grow 3.1% in 2026, up from the 3% it forecast in July. Its forecast for 2027 stays at 3.4%. [1][2]

The IMF says spending on AI, on chips, data centres and power plants, kept growth up while the war in the Middle East pushed energy prices higher. [1][3][4]

Georgieva, the IMF's head, said AI could add 0.5 to 1 percentage point to growth in Asia's rich economies. At the top of that range, it would more than make up for their ageing workforces. [5][4]

The growth is gathering in fewer places: 32 economies now produce 95% of the world's growth, against 54 in April. [6][1]

Taiwan is forecast to grow 10.7% this year and South Korea 3.3%, up from 1.1% in 2025, both on demand for chips. [1]

Countries that buy their energy abroad and sell few chips do worse: the euro area is forecast at 1.1%, and the Middle East and Central Asia to shrink 0.3%. [1]

The US is forecast to grow 2.3%, China to slow to 4.5%, India to grow 7% and Britain 1.3%. Germany's forecast was raised 0.6 points, to 1.3%, as it spends more on infrastructure and defence. [6][2]

The IMF expects world prices to rise 4.7% this year and 4.1% in 2027, and it now thinks high inflation will last longer than it did in July. [1][2]

The world's emergency oil stocks are being drawn down by about 2.7 million barrels a day, it says, close to levels that could set off sharp price jumps. [1][7]

Its numbers assume the Strait of Hormuz, the sea passage out of the Gulf, reopens in March 2027. In July it assumed mid-July 2026. Gulf crude exports were already back to 88% of their pre-war level in September. [1]

Rich countries' governments are set to borrow 5.2% of the size of their economies this year, the most since 2021, and the IMF calls rebuilding their finances urgent. [6]

If AI does not make workers more productive, the IMF's bad case has US shares falling 20% and world output ending 1.1% below its forecast by 2028. [1][7]

Why it matters. Watch the two things the IMF's forecast rests on: the Strait of Hormuz reopening by March 2027, and companies keeping up their spending on AI. [1][7]

Shares in chipmakers fell on Monday in New York and on Tuesday across Asia. [21] South Korea's main share index, the Kospi, fell more than 6% to its lowest since 31 July, and computer-driven trading was paused for five minutes. [9] SK Hynix, which makes memory chips for AI, fell more than 8%, Samsung Electronics 6.7% and Japan's SoftBank 8.8%. [21] Investors were worried by a new memory design from CXMT, a Chinese chipmaker, which it aims to sell by the end of 2026. [22] They also worried about how all the AI building will be paid for. [21]

Why it matters. Samsung and SK Hynix make up more than half of the Kospi, so a bad day for memory chips becomes a bad day for South Korea's whole market. [23] The Kospi led the world in the first half of 2026 and has fallen about 24% since. [23]

Hock Tan, the head of Broadcom, a big US chip designer, said on Monday that money, more than chips or electricity, may become the biggest limit on building AI. [10] He spoke at a conference in Singapore run by DBS, a bank. [10] Lip-Bu Tan, Intel's chief executive, said the rising cost of borrowing is the main challenge, and investors will want to see returns. [10] He said today's shortage of memory chips may be over within a year, and the shortage of silicon wafers, the discs chips are cut from, by 2028 or 2029. [10]

Why it matters. A data centre can take years to pay for itself, so higher borrowing costs make each one harder to fund. [10] Hock Tan still said demand for computing will outrun supply until 2029 or later. [10]

Eighty-five percent of North American family offices, firms that manage one rich family's money, rank AI as their top investment theme. [11] Yet 75% expect an AI bubble to burst within five years, a survey by RBC Wealth Management and Campden Wealth found. [11] The survey asked 155 family offices. [11] The risk they feared most was too much government borrowing, chosen by 76%. [11]

Why it matters. An RBC adviser said even patient investors can be caught up in the fear of missing out. [11] The IMF's own bad case for AI, a pullback in spending and a fall in share prices, is the kind of burst these families say they expect. [7]

Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF's head, said on Monday in Bangkok that AI is hitting jobs like a slow-moving tsunami. [4] The IMF estimates 40% of jobs worldwide will in time be changed, downgraded or cut. [3] Singapore's president, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, said demand for US graduates has fallen for the first time in a century. [4] He wants governments to keep Covid-era help, such as rewards for firms that hire graduates. [4]

Why it matters. Routine starter jobs are going first, Georgieva said, and those are where young people used to learn a trade. [4] Lower-paid jobs are growing in building work and data centres. [3]

In the US, firms in finance, insurance, information and professional services employ about 2% fewer people than at the end of 2022. [20] Their real output, what they produce after removing price rises, has grown 16% in the same time. [20] Gad Levanon, chief economist at the Burning Glass Institute, a research group, found the gap. [20] He says work once done by contractors and call centres now goes to software firms that add almost no staff. [20]

Why it matters. That breaks the usual link between a growing economy and better pay for ordinary workers, Levanon warns. [20] How much of the gap is caused by AI is still unclear. [20]

Kroger, one of the biggest US grocery chains, will cut about 3,000 corporate jobs over the next three years. [24] That is 37% of its 8,200 office staff. [19] Its new chief executive, Greg Foran, who used to run Walmart's US stores, told staff on Monday. [24] He said the company has too many layers of management and is leaning more on technology, including AI. [19]

Why it matters. Kroger says the money saved will go into lower prices, better shops and its store workers. [19] It has not yet said which departments lose the jobs. [19]

Bending Spoons, an Italian tech group, is laying off a large part of Airtable's staff. [25] Airtable makes a spreadsheet-and-database app, and Bending Spoons agreed to buy it for $1.28bn in August. [25] Its product chief said the cuts come from a belief that small teams ship more and better work. [25] The company has not said how many people lose their jobs. [25]

Why it matters. Staff leave by the end of the week with what the company calls substantial payouts. [25] Its plan puts AI features at the centre of the app, run by a smaller team. [25]

Robert Hall of Stanford University and Michael Woodford of Columbia University won the 2026 Nobel prize in economics on Monday. [26] They built the models that central banks and finance ministries now use to steady an economy and avoid long slumps or runaway prices. [26] Their models start from how households and firms plan ahead. [27] Woodford's work also led to forward guidance, when a central bank says where it expects interest rates to go. [26]

Why it matters. The prize, worth $1.2m in all, lands as central banks in the US, the euro area and Japan have raised rates this year to fight prices. [26][6]

India's consumer prices rose 5.54% in the year to September, up from 4.82% in August, India's statistics ministry said on Monday. [14] Economists polled by Reuters had expected 5.40%. [14] Food prices rose 7.74%, faster in villages than in cities, and the cost of transporting goods rose 14.73%. [14] India buys nearly 85% of its fuel from abroad. [14]

Why it matters. The Reserve Bank of India, the country's central bank, raised rates this month for the first time since 2023 and says cuts are off the table for now. [14] India's lowest monsoon rainfall in more than a decade puts food prices at further risk. [14]

The US dollar held near its highest level since April last year on Tuesday, measured against six other big currencies. [18] It has risen 4% in a month, a big move for the world's main currency. [28] Traders expect high energy prices to push the US central bank to raise rates while US growth beats other rich countries. [17] Worries about France's debts have also pulled the euro down. [18]

Why it matters. China's yuan went the other way, trading near its strongest level in four years. [18] Australia's central bank said in minutes out on Tuesday that it raised rates for a fourth time this year and could go again. [18]

Brent crude, the world's main oil price, rose on Monday and settled near $107 a barrel, its highest since late September. [12][29] Missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia counted for more with traders than President Trump's news of extra Russian diesel and a pause in Russian and Ukrainian strikes on energy sites. [12] Goldman Sachs, a US bank, raised its December forecast for Brent to $90 from $85. [12] Brent is still more than 70% higher this year. [29]

Why it matters. Goldman puts the extra price that comes from war risk at just over $20 a barrel. [12] Ukraine's president said on Monday that Russia had already broken the energy pause. [12]

Saudi Arabia's energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, said on Monday that a gas pipeline is being converted to carry crude oil too. [30] It could move about 1 million barrels a day within eight weeks, and 3 million with more spending. [30] He said the kingdom may have 10 million barrels a day of pipelines within two to three years. [30] Saudi Arabia's government, not Aramco, the state oil company, is paying. [30]

Why it matters. Pipelines would let Saudi oil avoid the Strait of Hormuz, where tankers keep being hit. [12] Analysts at CSIS, a US research group, warned that Iran is unlikely to stand by. [30]

Shares in the oil-tanker companies Torm, Hafnia and Teekay Tankers reached record highs on Monday. [31] Freight rates, the price of hiring a ship, have soared because tankers avoiding Hormuz take longer routes and pay more for insurance. [31] That leaves fewer ships free at any one time. [31] A fund that holds global shipping shares also hit an all-time high. [31]

Why it matters. The charge for hiring the ship is paid on top of the oil itself, so a delivered barrel costs buyers more than Brent shows. [31]

World demand for crude oil may have peaked in 2025, FGE NexantECA, an energy consultancy, said in a report. [32] More fuel is now made from plants and from gases such as ethane. [32] Electric vehicles are cutting petrol use and starting to cut diesel use. [32] It compares this year's Hormuz crisis with the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979, which also came six years apart and cut oil use for good. [32]

Why it matters. If it is right, refiners, oil drillers and OPEC, the group of big oil-exporting countries, face a harder future. [32]

Britain's van and pickup owners will spend almost GBP8.5bn at the pump this year, GBP2.5bn more than in 2025, Moneysupermarket, a price-comparison site, estimated. [13] Diesel passed GBP2 a litre this month, up more than 40% since late February. [13] About 95% of vans still run on diesel. [13] Britain's government plans to raise fuel duty, the tax on fuel, by 3p a litre from 1 January. [13]

Why it matters. The Road Haulage Association, which speaks for lorry firms, says many members earn about 2% on their sales and calls a duty rise a food price rise. [13] It wants a 15p-a-litre rebate like those in Spain, France and Italy. [13]

Car sales inside China fell 28.1% in September from a year earlier, to 1.63 million, the China Passenger Car Association said on Monday. [33] It was the 12th monthly fall in a row. [33] Exports jumped 73.2% to 923,000 cars. [33] Weak spending and a long slump in property are holding Chinese buyers back. [33]

Why it matters. Exports of electric and plug-in hybrid cars grew 163.5%. [33] Europe is now capping some of those imports, as the story below shows. [34]

Volkswagen, the German carmaker, delivered 1.89 million vehicles from July to September, 14.3% fewer than a year earlier. [35] Its deliveries in China, its largest market, fell 38.5%. [35] They also fell 5.8% in North America and 2.8% in western Europe. [35] Its truck arm, Traton, sold 10% more, led by a 48% jump at its US brand. [35]

Why it matters. China is Volkswagen's biggest market, and its deliveries there are down 30.2% since January. [35]

The European Union confirmed on Monday that it will limit hybrid cars imported from China to 350,000 a year. [34] At the Paris motor show, the heads of Stellantis, which owns Fiat and Vauxhall, and Renault said Britain should count as European under the EU's planned Made in Europe rules. [34] Those rules would keep EV grants and public orders for cars made in Europe. [34] Renault's boss said Britain should also limit Chinese car imports. [34]

Why it matters. Stellantis still builds small vans at Ellesmere Port in England, so the rules decide whether those vans count as European. [34] Britain's business secretary said this month that tariffs on Chinese cars are under review. [34]

Shares in Singapore's three big banks, DBS, OCBC and UOB, lost a combined $22.4bn in value last week. [16] They make up more than half of the Straits Times Index, which is 6.6% below its peak of five weeks ago. [16] Higher bond yields make their dividends look less attractive and cause losses on the bonds they hold. [16] Citigroup, a US bank, told its clients to sell OCBC shares. [16]

Why it matters. Investors had treated Singapore as a calm place during the Iran war and the swings in AI shares, so the slide tests that reputation. [16] The banks report their results in November. [16]

Singapore's prime minister, Lawrence Wong, said on Monday the country will not push its currency down to make its exports cheaper. [36] Singapore's central bank steers the economy through the exchange rate, not through interest rates. [36] A strong Singapore dollar keeps the price of imported goods down. [36] It also makes Singapore's goods and services dearer for foreign buyers. [36]

Why it matters. Exporters carry that cost, and Wong said they must count it along with Singapore's other high costs. [36] He said companies choose a country for skills and stability, not only for low prices. [36]

Shares in Bumble, a dating app, jumped nearly 50% on Monday. [37] The Wall Street Journal reported that it is in advanced talks to be bought for about $1bn by Ithaca Holdings, a new firm set up by two Silicon Valley executives. [37] Bumble was worth about $335m at Friday's close, so the reported price is almost three times that. [37] Its shares had fallen more than 90% since it listed in 2021. [37]

Why it matters. Its founder, Whitney Wolfe Herd, is expected to keep part of her stake and stay involved. [37] A deal could come this week if the talks hold. [37]

Starbucks said on Monday that it is not buying Chipotle, the burrito chain, after days of rumours. [38] The Financial Times had reported last Thursday that Starbucks was working with advisers on a bid. [38] Chipotle's shares fell nearly 4% after the denial, and Starbucks shares rose 1%. [38] Chipotle's shares are down about 20% over the past year, which had made it a cheaper target. [38]

Why it matters. It would have been the biggest restaurant takeover ever. [38] Chipotle had already hired advisers to fend off an unwanted bid, Semafor reported earlier this month. [38]

HCL Technologies, a big Indian IT services firm, said on Monday that its profit for July to September rose 21% from a year earlier, to Rs 5,132 crore (51.3 billion rupees). [39] Its revenue grew 11%. [39] Its income from AI work rose 78% to $219m. [39] It added 6,450 employees in the quarter and will pay a dividend of Rs 12 a share. [39]

Why it matters. HCL is one of eight firms the US barred last week from starting green-card applications for foreign workers. [40]