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▸ Oracle’s bumper earn­ings push Wall Street bench­marks to all-time peaks▸ Investors snap up US Treas­ur­ies but dol­lar slips against bas­ket of rivals▸ French stocks and gov­ern­ment bond prices rise slightly after PM appoin­tedWall Street rose to fresh record highs yes­ter­day after soft­ware com­pany Oracle announced bumper earn­ings driven by demand for arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence.The blue-chip S&P 500 index rose as much as 0.7 per cent by mid­day in New York while the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index climbed 0.5 per cent, tak­ing both indices to record peaks.Oracle's share price was 42 per cent higher after the cloud com­put­ing group's book­ings punched through investor expect­a­tions in earn­ings announced after the mar­ket closed on Tues­day.Chris Turner, global head of mar­kets research at ING, said the res­ults “sup­por­ted the hype in AI invest­ment”.Wall Street stocks were also buoyed by soft infla­tion data, which added to traders' con­vic­tions that the US Fed­eral Reserve will cut interest rates next week.

The US added 911,000 fewer jobs than pre­vi­ously thought in the year to March, accord­ing to new offi­cial stat­ist­ics that sug­gest the labour mar­ket in the world’s biggest eco­nomy began cool­ing sharply in 2024.The fig­ures from the Bur­eau of Labor Stat­ist­ics show national employ­ment in the 12 months to March 2025 was far below levels in its closely watched monthly reports and indic­ate jobs growth began to lose steam in the lat­ter part of Joe Biden’s pres­id­ency.Yes­ter­day’s revi­sion is the largest on record and roughly halves the 1.8mn job growth fig­ure the agency had pre­vi­ously estim­ated for the year.The report will be a boost to Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump, who has argued that his aggress­ive tar­iff and immig­ra­tion policies were not to blame for recent signs of weak­ness in the labour mar­ket.“These revi­sions sug­gest that jobs momentum is being lost from an even weaker pos­i­tion than ori­gin­ally thought,” said James Knight­ley, chief inter­na­tional eco­nom­ist at ING.Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion also used the data — which will fur­ther raise pres­sure on the US Fed­eral Reserve to cut interest rates next week — to renew its attacks on Biden. 

▸ Wall Street stocks give up early gains after US jobs data revised lower▸ Dol­lar moves higher but US gov­ern­ment bonds sold by investors▸ Paris stocks make mod­est gains as gov­ern­ment col­lapse priced inWall Street stocks gave up early gains yes­ter­day after revised data sug­ges­ted that the world’s biggest eco­nomy was in a weaker pos­i­tion than investors had thought.After rising at the open, the blue-chip S&P 500 index was 0.1 per cent lower by early after­noon in New York, as was the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index.Revised fig­ures from the Bur­eau of Labor Stat­ist­ics showed that the US added 911,000 fewer jobs than pre­vi­ously stated in the year to March.“These revi­sions sug­gest that jobs momentum is being lost from an even weaker pos­i­tion than ori­gin­ally thought,” said James Knight­ley, chief inter­na­tional eco­nom­ist at ING.He added that “the poor num­bers seen in 2025 are prob­ably over­stat­ing the health of the employ­ment mar­ket”.

The US has informed coun­tries in Europe that it is step­ping back from joint efforts to com­bat dis­in­form­a­tion from coun­tries such as Rus­sia, China and Iran, accord­ing to three European offi­cials famil­iar with the mat­ter.European coun­tries received a notice from the state depart­ment last week that the US was ter­min­at­ing memor­anda of under­stand­ing signed under Joe Biden’s admin­is­tra­tion, which sought to forge a uni­fied approach to identi­fy­ing and expos­ing mali­cious inform­a­tion spread by for­eign gov­ern­ments seek­ing to sow chaos.The move comes as Don­ald Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion has dis­mantled agen­cies across gov­ern­ment that sought to pro­tect the integ­rity of US elec­tions and to com­bat for­eign malign influ­ence at home and abroad.The memor­anda were part of an ini­ti­at­ive led by the Global Engage­ment Cen­ter, a state depart­ment agency that tackled dis­in­form­a­tion spread over­seas by US adversar­ies and ter­ror groups.James Rubin, who served as head of the centre until Decem­ber, described the decision as a “uni­lat­eral act of dis­arm­a­ment” in the inform­a­tion war with Rus­sia and China. “Inform­a­tion war­fare is a real­ity of our time and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is only going to mul­tiply the risks from that,” Rubin said.

▸ US stocks climb as investors turn focus to pos­sible Fed rate cut▸ Europe-wide Stoxx 600 index and Asian bourses gain ground▸ Green­back slides against bas­ket of other major cur­ren­ciesUS stocks rose yes­ter­day as investor focus shif­ted to the pos­sib­il­ity of Fed­eral Reserve interest rate cuts, fol­low­ing dis­ap­point­ing eco­nomic data at the end of last week.Weaker than expec­ted non-farm payrolls data fuelled investor fears about a sus­tained growth slow­down in the US, send­ing stocks lower and bond prices higher on Fri­day.But equity indices regained ground yes­ter­day, with the blue-chip S&P 500 index up 0.3 per cent by early after­noon in New York and the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite adding 0.7 per cent.Fol­low­ing Fri­day's data, traders moved to fully price in a quarter-point interest rate cut by the Fed this month and some even star­ted spec­u­lat­ing on a bumper half-per­cent­age point cut.“We think the August labour mar­ket data has opened the door to a ‘catch-up' 50 basis point rate cut at the Septem­ber FOMC meet­ing,” said John Davis, US rates strategist at Stand­ard Chartered.

Tesla’s board has pro­posed a new pay pack­age for chief exec­ut­ive Elon Musk worth $1tn over the next dec­ade if he is hits a series of for­mid­able tar­gets.Musk will receive no salary or bonus under the plan unveiled yes­ter­day, but would col­lect shares in instal­ments unlocked by increases in Tesla’s mar­ket value, along­side mile­stones includ­ing a huge increase in earn­ings and selling mil­lions of cars, robo­taxis and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence-powered robots.“Retain­ing and incentiv­ising Elon is fun­da­mental to Tesla . . . becom­ing the most valu­able com­pany in his­tory,” chair Robyn Den­holm wrote to investors, adding it would “drive peak per­form­ance from our vis­ion­ary leader”.The board stressed that Musk’s incent­ives were aligned with investors’ interests and he will receive noth­ing if Tesla’s growth stalls. But the scale of the pack­age is likely to revive a fierce debate over the earn­ings of the world’s richest man.

▸ Wall Street slides on fears of a sus­tained eco­nomic slow­down▸ Dol­lar retreats while Treas­ur­ies rally as investors bet on faster US rate cuts▸ Paris stocks weaker ahead of cru­cial French gov­ern­ment con­fid­ence voteWall Street stocks slid yes­ter­day after US employ­ment data indic­ated that the world's biggest eco­nomy was slow­ing down.The closely watched fig­ure for non­farm payrolls showed that just 22,000 jobs were added in August, far fewer than the 75,000 that ana­lysts had expec­ted.The blue-chip S&P 500 index ini­tially jumped to a record high as traders piled on bets of faster interest rate cuts.But the US bench­mark soon reversed course on fears of a sus­tained eco­nomic slow­down and was 0.5 per cent lower on the day by early after­noon in New York.The tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite was down 0.2 per cent after also briefly hit­ting a new record.The weak data revived investors' fears of stag­fla­tion emer­ging in the US.

Busi­nesses cut jobs at the quick­est rate for four years this sum­mer and repor­ted the worst employ­ment out­look since the pan­demic, point­ing to the impact of chan­cel­lor Rachel Reeves’ decision to raise payroll taxes.Com­pan­ies reduced employ­ment by an annual rate of 0.5 per cent in the three months to August, the worst fig­ure since 2021, accord­ing to a Bank of Eng­land sur­vey of chief fin­an­cial officers pub­lished yes­ter­day. Last month, busi­nesses also told the cent­ral bank they expec­ted to cut employ­ment by 0.5 per cent in the year ahead. This is the worst read­ing since Octo­ber 2020, when the eco­nomy was start­ing to recover from Covid-19 and some restric­tions were still in place.Busi­nesses have blamed tax increases in Reeves’ first Budget last Octo­ber for the pull­back in hir­ing, which has been repor­ted in a string of other sur­veys.A £25bn increase in national insur­ance con­tri­bu­tions, announced in the fiscal event, took effect in April along with a rise in the min­imum wage.

▸ Core gov­ern­ment bonds extend gains after soft US labour mar­ket data▸ Dol­lar advances, climb­ing against both the euro and ster­ling▸ Wall Street edges higher as investors lean into their bets on Fed rate cutsCore gov­ern­ment bonds made fur­ther gains glob­ally yes­ter­day after the latest sign of weak­ness in the Amer­ican labour mar­ket gave traders renewed hope of an interest rate cut by the US Fed­eral Reserve later this month.Data on US private payrolls came in weaker than ana­lysts had expec­ted while job­less claims were higher than fore­cast.Yields on bench­mark 10-year US Treas­ur­ies fell 3 basis points to 4.18 per cent. The two-year Treas­ury yield, which tends to move with interest rate expect­a­tions, fell 2bp to 3.60 per cent as investors bought the debt.The private payrolls fig­ure was the latest in a series of soft employ­ment data ahead of key US non-farm payrolls data today.A weak non-farm payrolls read­ing for July caused a stock mar­ket sell-off last month and — with mar­kets over­whelm­ingly expect­ing an interest rate cut this month — any unex­pec­ted strength in the jobs data could lead traders to trim their bets.Sub­stan­tial weak­ness in the jobs num­bers, however, could add to con­cerns over eco­nomic growth.

Shares in Google par­ent Alpha­bet rose yes­ter­day after the tech giant avoided a court order requir­ing it to be broken up fol­low­ing a rul­ing that it had cre­ated an illegal mono­poly.Judge Amit Mehta said the threat to Google’s search engine posed by arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence chat­bots was cru­cial to his decision to impose a less oner­ous set of require­ments on it.The US Depart­ment of Justice had argued that Google should have to sell its Chrome browser and, if neces­sary, its Android oper­at­ing sys­tem, after win­ning a land­mark judg­ment last year that the com­pany main­tained an illegal mono­poly in online search.The order falls short of the most extreme out­comes feared by investors, such as a full ban on advert­ising rev­enue share deals with the likes of Apple.Shares in Google par­ent Alpha­bet rose almost 7 per cent in New York trad­ing, while Apple gained about 3 per cent.Dan Ives, ana­lyst at Wed­bush Secur­it­ies, said Tues­day’s order was a “massive win” for the two com­pan­ies.

▸ Core gov­ern­ment bonds rally glob­ally after dis­ap­point­ing US eco­nomic data▸ UK gilt yields fall back from post-1998 high amid investor buy­ing▸ Wall Street strengthens ahead of this week’s key Amer­ican job num­bersBond mar­kets ral­lied yes­ter­day, recov­er­ing from a global sell-off, as dis­ap­point­ing data on Amer­ican job open­ings promp­ted bets that the US Fed­eral Reserve would cut rates more aggress­ively to sup­port the world's biggest eco­nomy.US job open­ings fell to 7.18mn in July accord­ing to closely watched JOLTS data, below the 7.38mn expec­ted by eco­nom­ists polled by Reu­ters — and down from 7.44mn for the pre­vi­ous month.Andy Bren­ner, head of inter­na­tional fixed income at Nat­Al­li­ance Secur­it­ies, said the job open­ings and other data show­ing higher lay-offs “got my atten­tion and the mar­ket's atten­tion”.The rally hal­ted a bond mar­ket slide that had pushed bor­row­ing costs in some big eco­nom­ies to their highest levels in years.Yields on 30-year US Treas­ur­ies fell 7 basis points to 4.90 per cent by mid­day in New York trad­ing as investors bought the debt — recov­er­ing after climb­ing to 5 per cent for the first time since July.The moves powered a recov­ery in sen­ti­ment towards sov­er­eign bonds around the world after Japan's 30-year yield earlier hit a record high and the UK's 30-year gilt yield reached a fresh post1998 high of 5.75 per cent.The 30-year gilt UK yield fell back to 5.62 per cent.

Hedge fund bil­lion­aire Ray Dalio has warned that Don­ald Trump’s Amer­ica is drift­ing into 1930s-style auto­cratic polit­ics — and said other investors were too scared of the pres­id­ent to speak up.The Bridge­wa­ter Asso­ciates founder told the Fin­an­cial Times that “gaps in wealth” were driv­ing “more extreme” policies in the US. “I think that what is hap­pen­ing now polit­ic­ally and socially is ana­log­ous to what happened around the world in the 1930-40 period,” he said.State inter­ven­tion in the private sec­tor, such as Trump’s decision to take a 10 per cent stake in chip­maker Intel, was the sort of “strong auto­cratic lead­er­ship that sprang out of the desire to take con­trol of the fin­an­cial and eco­nomic situ­ation”, Dalio said.His com­ments to the FT mark a rare cri­ti­cism of Trump by a prom­in­ent fin­an­cial fig­ure, des­pite mount­ing private alarm among some Wall Street investors at the pres­id­ent’s policies.“I am just describ­ing the cause-and-effect rela­tion­ships that are driv­ing what is hap­pen­ing,” he said. “And, by the way, dur­ing such times most people are silent because they are afraid of retali­ation if they cri­ti­cise.”

The pound fell sharply yes­ter­day as long-term bor­row­ing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998, with con­cerns over the coun­try’s pub­lic fin­ances com­bin­ing with a global move higher in bond yields.Ster­ling slumped as much as 1.5 per cent against the dol­lar to $1.334 before edging up to $1.338, put­ting it on track for its biggest one-day drop since April, a day after Sir Keir Starmer reshuffled his eco­nomic team.Adding to pres­sure on chan­cel­lor Rachel Reeves ahead of her Budget, the yield on the 30-year gilt rose 0.08 per­cent­age points to 5.72 per cent at one point. Bond yields rise as prices fall. UK bor­row­ing costs are the highest in the G7, driven up in recent years by per­sist­ent infla­tion and rising pub­lic debt.The higher yields — if sus­tained — will fur­ther erode the chan­cel­lor’s head­room against her key fiscal rule.Lord Ken Clarke, a former Con­ser­vat­ive chan­cel­lor, claimed that Bri­tain was “much nearer to the risk of a fin­an­cial crisis than the gov­ern­ment is remotely acknow­ledging” and claimed it was not impossible it would have to seek a bail­out from the IMF. 

▸ Global stocks fall as gov­ern­ment bond sell-off spills into equit­ies trad­ing▸ World’s biggest lis­ted com­pany Nvidia extends last week’s declines▸ Gold hits record with investors look­ing for safe altern­at­ives to sov­er­eign debtGlobal stocks fell yes­ter­day as a sell-off in gov­ern­ment bonds spilled into the equity mar­ket, extend­ing the recent wobble for tech shares on Wall Street.The US blue-chip S&P 500 index was down 1.4 per cent by mid­day in New York while the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite dropped 1.6 per cent as major equit­ies indices in Europe also declined.The falls came amid pres­sure on US Treas­ur­ies and other gov­ern­ment debt, partly due to investor wor­ries over rising debt piles in many major eco­nom­ies.“The risk-off sen­ti­ment today is broader mar­ket unease stem­ming from the bond mar­ket,” said Mar­ija Veit­mane, head of equity research at State Street Mar­kets.Yes­ter­day's moves on Wall Street exten­ded declines from Fri­day's ses­sion when the Nas­daq Com­pos­ite dropped 1.2 per cent and the S&P 500 fell 0.6 per cent.

JPMor­gan Chase has hired a record num­ber of senior com­mer­cial and invest­ment bankers in the past year as part of an assault on mar­kets it is tar­get­ing for growth.The Wall Street bank has poached about 100 man­aging dir­ect­ors from com­pet­it­ors includ­ing Gold­man Sachs and Cit­ig­roup since early last year, people famil­iar with the details told the Fin­an­cial Times.The recruit­ment cam­paign has sig­ni­fic­antly exceeded hir­ing in pre­vi­ous years, the people added, not­ing that JPMor­gan has brought more man­aging dir­ect­ors into its global bank­ing divi­sion over the past 12 months than it did in the pre­vi­ous dec­ade.“We have stealth­ily hired from across the street and we are con­tinu­ing to hire,” one of the people said.The spree was launched fol­low­ing an internal review when JPMor­gan com­bined its com­mer­cial, invest­ment and cor­por­ate bank­ing units in early 2024, accord­ing to one of the people. JPMor­gan declined to com­ment. The bank wants to boost its mar­ket share in invest­ment bank­ing sub­sect­ors includ­ing health­care, tech­no­logy and infra­struc­ture. It is also look­ing to expand in Europe and Asia and build out its middle mar­ket bank­ing busi­ness.

Shares in Bri­tain’s biggest banks tumbled yes­ter­day amid mount­ing fears that the chan­cel­lor might raise taxes on the sec­tor in the autumn Budget to bol­ster the strained pub­lic fin­ances.Nat­W­est, Lloyds Bank­ing Group and Barclays exper­i­enced some of their worst sell-offs in months as the Treas­ury faced calls to intro­duce a new levy on bank profits.Nat­W­est fell as much as 5.9 per cent before clos­ing down 4.9 per cent, the worst per­former on the FTSE 100.Nat­W­est closed down 4.9 per cent, the worst per­former on the FTSE 100, while Lloyds fell 3.4 per centLloyds, which is often seen as a bell­wether for the UK eco­nomy, fell 5 per cent before par­ing back its losses to 3.4 per cent. Barclays stock ended the day 2.2 per cent lower.The banks dragged the index to its fourth straight days of losses for the first time since US Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump announced sweep­ing tar­iffs in April.The falls came as the Fin­an­cial Times repor­ted that banks were braced for min­is­ters to intro­duce a sur­charge on profits or even a new bank levy to help fill a fiscal hole estim­ated by eco­nom­ists to be at least £20bn.

▸ Wall Street retreats after infla­tion data under­scores fears over interest rates▸ US gov­ern­ment bor­row­ing costs rise as investors off­load bench­mark Treas­ur­ies▸ Paris stocks extend declines in week of polit­ical tur­moil in FranceWall Street stocks dropped yes­ter­day after infla­tion data under­scored investors' nervous­ness about the tra­ject­ory of interest rate cuts in the world's biggest eco­nomy.The tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index had fallen 1.2 per cent by early after­noon in New York. The blue-chip S&P 500 index was down 0.8 per cent.The Per­sonal Con­sump­tion Expendit­ures price index — the cent­ral bank's pre­ferred meas­ure of infla­tion — rose 2.6 per cent in July. That was in line with ana­lysts' expect­a­tions but above the US Fed­eral Reserve's 2 per cent tar­get.“We expect tar­iff-related price pres­sures to exert fur­ther upward pres­sure on core infla­tion in the com­ing months,” said Pooja Sri­ram, vice­pres­id­ent for US eco­nom­ics at Barclays.Per­sist­ently high infla­tion would be a hurdle to the cent­ral bank cut­ting its bench­mark interest rate.

Nigel Far­age has prom­ised the mass deport­a­tion of irreg­u­lar migrants and to take the UK out of the European Con­ven­tion on Human Rights.The Reform UK leader said his party would also dis­ap­ply the 1951 UN Refugee Con­ven­tion for a five-year period, along with “any other bar­ri­ers” that would pre­vent the deport­a­tion of irreg­u­lar migrants to their home coun­tries or a safe third coun­try.Speak­ing in Oxford­shire yes­ter­day, Far­age said urgent action was needed to tackle pub­lic con­cerns about irreg­u­lar migra­tion, which has risen up the polit­ical agenda amid protests over the use of hotels to house asylum seekers.“We are not very far away from major civil dis­order,” he said. “We have to leave the ECHR, no ifs, no buts . . . We have to repeal the Human Rights Act.”The ECHR and the Human Rights Act, which require the courts to take into account rul­ings by the European Court of Human Rights, have been cited to block the deport­a­tion of asylum seekers. 

▸ Wall Street reacts in muted fash­ion after Trump threat to fire Fed’s Cook▸ Investors sell long-dated Treas­ur­ies but buy shorter-term US debt▸ European stocks fall on pro­spect of renewed polit­ical tur­moil in FranceUS stock mar­kets were muted yes­ter­day des­pite Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump's renewed attacks on the coun­try's cent­ral bank.Trump said on Monday even­ing that he would fire US Fed­eral Reserve gov­ernor Lisa Cook, “effect­ive imme­di­ately”. Cook has said she will remain in her post and chal­lenge any attempt to remove her.Des­pite warn­ings that Trump's move could under­mine the abil­ity of the world's most import­ant cent­ral bank to con­trol infla­tion, equity mar­kets were little changed.The blue-chip S&P 500 index was flat by early after­noon in New York while the Nas­daq Com­pos­ite was 0.2 per cent higher.“The muted ini­tial reac­tion to this escal­a­tion may reflect Trump's prior com­ments fore­shad­ow­ing the move, as well as lim­ited con­vic­tion on whether Trump has the legal grounds to fol­low through on the threat,” said Ulrike Hoff­mann-Burch­ardi, global head of equit­ies at UBS Global Wealth Man­age­ment.

Private equity firms are strug­gling to raise money des­pite offer­ing wide­spread entice­ments to attract new investor cash, under­scor­ing the depth of the con­trac­tion that is dent­ing the industry’s prof­it­ab­il­ity.They raised just $592bn in the 12 months to June, their low­est tally for seven years, accord­ing to data from Pre­qin. The decline came even though firms offered man­age­ment fee cuts, “early-bird dis­counts” for investors who com­mit quickly to new funds and other incent­ives.PE firms “are offer­ing a smor­gas­bord of dis­counts”, said Marco Masotti, global head of private equity fun­drais­ing at law firm Paul Weiss, who added in a report by the firm that they were “facing mount­ing fee pres­sure and agree­ing to a cas­cade of dis­counts”.The industry’s fun­drais­ing has shrunk by nearly a third from its record levels in 2021. Higher interest rates and a slow­down in deal­mak­ing have left firms unable to sell tril­lions of dol­lars in age­ing invest­ments, caus­ing grow­ing frus­tra­tion among investors, many of whom are refus­ing to back funds.