By David Milliken LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s highest inflation in four decades failed to boost company profits last year, with the exception of oil and gas extractors who benefited from a surge in energy prices, official figures showed on Tuesday. The average net rate of return on capital employed by British companies not involved in…
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Euro zone bank lending slowed again in April, supporting the case for careful interest rate hikes in the months ahead as weak growth and surging borrowing costs are already denting demand for credit, European Central Bank data showed on Tuesday. The ECB has raised rates at the fastest pace on record over…
By Sam Tobin and Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) – Microsoft on Tuesday accused Britain’s anti-trust regulator of being a global “outlier” in blocking its $69 billion takeover of “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) vetoed the deal in April, saying it could hurt competition in the nascent cloud gaming…
By Andrew MacAskill LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will hold talks with U.S. President Joe Biden next week when they will discuss improving economic ties and how to sustain military support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. Sunak will be in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday next week for meetings with Biden,…
By Muvija M LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s competition regulator told supermarkets on Tuesday it was looking at their earnings to identify which supply chains it needed to examine more closely as part of efforts to tackle food price inflation. Food prices are up more than 19% over the last year, after the most sustained inflation…
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s central government primary budget surplus dropped by 48.3% in April in real terms from the same period last year, Treasury figures showed on Tuesday, on the back of increased spending. The central government, including the Treasury, central bank, and social security, recorded a primary surplus of 15.604 billion reais ($3.12 billion)…
(Reuters) – Nvidia Corp on Tuesday became the first chipmaker to join Wall Street’s trillion-dollar club dominated by technology heavyweights such as Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp. The boom in artificial intelligence (AI) technology has driven a threefold surge in Nvidia’s stock valuation in less then eight months, helping the chipmaker hit the trillion-dollar mark…
PARIS (Reuters) – France backs the ongoing talks between Tunisia and the International Monetary Fund, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday, as the cash-strapped North African country eyes a key IMF bailout package. The French government issued a statement after Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna held talks in Paris on Tuesday with Tunisian counterpart Nabil Ammar….
By John Irish PARIS/CHISINAU (Reuters) – More than 40 European leaders meet in Moldova on Thursday in a show of support for the former Soviet republic and neighbouring Ukraine as Kyiv prepares to launch a counter-offensive against occupying Russian forces. The gathering of the EU’s 27 member states and 20 other European countries at a…
Rising U.S. labor costs are doing little to drive up inflation, researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco said on Tuesday, a finding that may undercut the argument that wage gains are key to elevated price pressures. The analysis by Adam Shapiro in the latest edition of the FRBSF Economic Letter showed that…
