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European gas prices jumped further on Wednesday after Russia followed through on its threat to make further cuts in gas supplies to the region. Gas prices rose 12 per cent early on Wednesday and have risen by more than a third this week from already extremely elevated levels as Europe struggles to fill gas storage

Lloyds Banking Group has beaten quarterly profit estimates and updated full-year guidance as interest rate rises and an increase in mortgages boosted the UK lender. Second-quarter pre-tax profit rose to £2.04bn, inching up from £2.01bn a year earlier but beating consensus of £1.6bn. Revenues for the three months to June rose 10 per cent to

Deutsche Bank has ditched an already reduced target for cost cuts this year as Germany’s largest lender warned that it was braced for “higher-than-expected bank levies, inflation, unforeseen costs related to the war in Ukraine and litigation matters”. The combination of factors has rendered its ambition of bringing costs down to 70 per cent of

Credit Suisse announced plans for a “comprehensive” review of its businesses as the troubled Swiss bank installed Ulrich Körner as chief executive and slumped to a far larger second-quarter loss than expected. Körner, who heads Credit Suisse’s asset management business, will take over from Thomas Gottstein, who is stepping down after leading the bank through

The old riverside customs and excise office in South Shields, once one of the world’s most important shipbuilding hubs, boasts a mosaic that tells the port’s maritime story. In the middle there is the River Tyne, before it was blackened by shipyards and coal, teeming with salmon. “There was a time when they used to

The writer is the founder of Sahm Consulting and a former Federal Reserve and White House economist Some commentators argue that the US needs a recession to bring inflation down. That thinking hinges on a simplistic model of the economy and a refusal to see Covid and the war in Ukraine as important sources of

The Biden administration has bolstered efforts to sign big oil importers on to a plan to cap prices they offer for Russian crude, concerned that without it the world faces a damaging surge in fuel costs. Negotiations are under way between the US and China, India and other countries that have been buying up discounted

Shares in US retailers led Wall Street lower on Tuesday after Walmart warned that higher inflation would hurt its profits. The broad S&P 500 share index shed 1.2 per cent, with consumer cyclical stocks suffering the sharpest declines. Walmart’s share price dropped 7.6 per cent after the big-box retailer issued its second profit warning in

Credit Suisse is set to appoint Ulrich Körner as its new chief executive, taking over from Thomas Gottstein, whose departure will bring an end to one of the most tumultuous periods in the Swiss bank’s 166-year history. The appointment of Körner, who is head of the bank’s asset management division, is expected to be announced on

French satellite operator Eutelsat and money-losing UK start-up OneWeb are going for the moonshot: a merger that stakes their future on being able to compete with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. The deal, which was announced on Tuesday, involves an incumbent trying to stave off obsolescence by teaming up with a scrappy tech disrupter —

European gas prices have surged 30 per cent in two days after Russia deepened supply cuts to the continent in Moscow’s latest attempt to weaponise energy supplies. Futures contracts for delivery next month tied to TTF, the European benchmark wholesale gas price, jumped 20 per cent on Tuesday to breach €210 per megawatt hour, the

Germany is rethinking its plan to exit nuclear power by the end of the year, as concern increases that Russia’s moves to cut gas supplies could trigger a winter electricity crunch in Europe’s largest economy. A U-turn on nuclear power would mark a big departure in German energy policy. It would be a particularly bitter

There are different routes to political greatness. Some lead by charisma. Others surf public opinion. David Trimble, the Northern Irish leader who died this week, was neither. He was something rarer: an anti-populist. The Ulsterman, often described as “prickly”, led his people along a hard, unpopular road to a better future. For UK politicians wrestling

The writer is a science commentator If there were a celebrity hierarchy of proteins, p53 would be its Kim Kardashian. The protein scuppers tumour growth: a lack of p53 — for example through a mutation in the gene that produces it — predisposes a person to cancer. It is, therefore, the most exhaustively studied protein

European energy ministers have agreed an EU-wide plan to cut gas consumption in case of a complete shut-off of Russian supplies. As part of the deal, the 27 EU nations on Tuesday vowed to slash 45bn cubic metres in gas use between August 1 and March 31, equivalent to a 15 per cent decrease from

The IMF has slashed its global growth forecasts and raised its projections for inflation, warning that the risks to the economic outlook are “overwhelmingly tilted to the downside”. The downgraded estimates, released on Tuesday, come as the world grapples with the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, prolonged disruptions caused by the pandemic and rapidly

The author is EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy Seven years ago, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany, Iran and the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy concluded a landmark diplomatic deal. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was the result of years of intense

Rishi Sunak’s attempt to derail Liz Truss’s Tory leadership bid appeared to have failed on Tuesday, as a new opinion poll found that Conservative members believed that she won a crucial head-to-head televised debate. The YouGov survey found Tory activists — who have the final say on who will be Britain’s next prime minister —

What would Amazon’s stock price be if US retail investors were banned from investing? Lower, doubtless. The thought experiment shows that Alibaba’s 2014 listing in New York was doubly impressive. The world’s largest-ever listing depended on foreign investors. This year, mainland China’s legions of retail investors should get the chance to invest. For Chinese tech

Alibaba will apply for a dual-primary listing on Hong Kong’s stock exchange, in a move analysts say lays the groundwork to grant mainland Chinese investors access to its shares and help minimise disruption if US regulators force it to delist from Wall Street. The New York-listed Chinese ecommerce group, which has a secondary listing in