The price of bitcoin has dropped below $30,000, wiping out almost all of its gains for the year, with a sweeping regulatory crackdown putting the world’s leading digital asset under persistent pressure. Bitcoin fell as much as 12 per cent on Tuesday to $28,824 in the latest leg of a sell-off that has pulled the
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Hong Kong’s pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily is on the verge of closure after its assets were frozen by the government last week, restricting its ability to operate. The asset freeze follows the arrest of two of the newspaper’s senior executives who were charged under China’s tough national security law after a raid by 500 police
The Delta coronavirus variant that swept the UK has become dominant in Portugal and appeared in clusters across Germany, France and Spain, prompting European health officials to warn further action is needed to slow its spread. While the new strain, which first emerged in India, still only accounts for a fraction of the total coronavirus
Ebrahim Raisi, a conservative cleric, was set for a landslide victory in Iran’s presidential election that would give regime hardliners complete control over all branches of the state for the first time in almost a decade. Raisi’s two main rivals conceded on Saturday and congratulated the 60-year-old who many Iranians believe is the favoured candidate
The “reflation trade” that has dominated financial markets since the emergence of coronavirus vaccines last year has been pummelled after the Federal Reserve unexpectedly signalled a shift in its stance on inflation. Investors had rushed to buy securities that might benefit from faster inflation, betting that the combination of exceptionally easy monetary and fiscal policy
Global stocks continued a steady descent from record highs reached earlier in the week and the dollar strengthened after the US central bank brought forward the anticipated timing of its first post-pandemic interest rate rise. The FTSE All-World index of developed and emerging market stocks, which hit a closing record on Monday, headed for its
US president Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are meeting in Geneva on Wednesday for talks aimed at arresting a rapid decline in relations between two countries beset by mutual distrust. In their first face-to-face encounter as leaders, the presidents will grapple with accusations, complaints and charges against one another, including alleged Russian
The EU has excluded 10 of the heaviest-hitting banks in the debt market from running lucrative bond sales as part of its €800bn recovery fund, over historic breaches of antitrust rules. Brussels’ biggest ever borrowing spree kicks off on Tuesday with the sale of a new 10-year bond to fund the NextGenerationEU programme under a
US president Joe Biden has challenged leaders of G7 countries to use their financial muscle to counter China’s rising global influence as he declared that western democracies were “in a contest with autocrats”. Biden said he was “satisfied” with the outcome of the G7 summit in Cornwall on Sunday, but pushed European leaders to be
Leaders of the G7 leading western economies will on Sunday back a western rival to China’s “belt and road” initiative, in a plan to mobilise billions of dollars to help developing countries tackle climate change. Joe Biden has been leading calls to offer poor countries a new source of infrastructure finance, providing a “democratic” alternative
Emmanuel Macron, French president, has warned Boris Johnson that efforts to reset relations between Paris and London will fail unless the UK prime minister keeps his word over the Brexit deal in Northern Ireland. At a breakfast meeting on the margins of the G7 summit in Cornwall, Macron made it clear he expected Johnson to
The private capital industry has grown to more than $7tn thanks to demand for higher-returning but pricey and opaque strategies, spurring the likes of Schroders and JPMorgan to launch new divisions and sending others on the prowl for acquisitions. Although still dwarfed by the traditional asset management industry — which primarily invests in mainstream, public
Global regulators are calling for cryptocurrencies to carry the toughest bank capital rules of any asset, arguing that requirements for holding bitcoin and similar tokens should be far higher than those for conventional stocks and bonds. Banks with exposure to volatile cryptocurrencies should face stricter capital requirements to reflect the higher risks, said the Basel
Royal Dutch Shell is to accelerate its plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions after an order by a court in the Netherlands, with the oil major saying it would “rise to the challenge”. Last month, the District Court in The Hague ruled that Shell must reduce its net carbon emissions by 45 per cent by
Thousands of websites went offline for almost an hour on Tuesday morning, including several of the world’s largest news sites, streaming services, online retailers and even the UK government, disrupting millions of internet users. Connectivity problems lasting almost an hour appeared to affect news sites including the BBC, New York Times and FT.com, streaming services
The global chip shortage disrupting the car industry and threatening the supply of consumer technology products will last for at least another year, one of the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturers has warned. The forecast from Flex, the world’s third-biggest such manufacturer, is one of the gloomiest yet for a crisis that is forcing car and
The G7 advanced economies have struck what they have termed a “historic agreement” on taxing multinationals in a bid to create unstoppable momentum for a global deal. A communique issued on Saturday showed that the US, Japan, Germany, France, UK, Italy and Canada had found enough compromise both to stop companies shifting profits to low
The leading advanced economies are set to agree a common position on taxing multinational companies on Saturday in a bid to end a three-decade race to the bottom in corporate taxation which would raise extra revenue for governments around the world. Finance ministers from the G7 group of nations were still haggling over details of
Some of the biggest Japanese sponsors of the Tokyo Olympics want organisers to postpone the Games for several months to allow more spectators to attend. The proposal was made privately over recent weeks, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The request follows growing frustration among some of the 47 Japanese companies that collectively
Commodities trader Trafigura warned Credit Suisse last year that the bank’s supply-chain finance funds appeared to contain a suspicious invoice from industrialist Sanjeev Gupta’s business empire, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions. The collapse of the $10bn suite of Credit Suisse funds, which packaged up invoices linked to the failed supply-chain finance