Lymington is a lovely little spot. It’s on the south edge of the New Forest National Park and just a few hundred yards from the Isle of Wight, making it the closest place on the UK mainland to the 1950s. There is a pleasant little harbour with some smart boats, the sort you have if

Last week, shares of Chinese tech giants looked like they could not go any lower. On Thursday, Tencent led further declines, falling as much as 8 per cent and pulling down Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index 2.5 per cent. The sell-off adjusts valuations to rising discount rates and lower expected growth. It has further to

Good morning. The chancellor Rishi Sunak has warned “the next few months will be tough”, after inflation hit 9 per cent, its highest rate in 40 years and more than any other G7 economy. Political rows over the Bank of England’s handling of its inflation target are rumbling on. That, plus Labour-Liberal Democrat relations, are

The net worth required to be considered wealthy in the US has reverted back to near pre-pandemic levels of $2.2mn, as inflation weighs on household finances and the rising cost of borrowing money puts pressure on prospective homebuyers. The 2022 rise followed a stark drop in last year’s figure, which fell to $1.9mn in 2021

Joe Biden will send a clear message to US allies in Asia of his commitment to security in the region during a visit to South Korea and Japan this week despite his administration’s focus on the war in Ukraine. On his first trip to Asia as US president, Biden will spend five days in Seoul

Good morning and welcome to Europe Express. In case you’re confused about what exactly EU energy companies should do to continue paying for Russian gas — as morally unpalatable as that may be in the context of the war in Ukraine — you’re not the only one. We’ll try to cut through the fog of

Good morning. Yesterday, Rob landed in London just in time to hear that UK inflation there had hit 9 per cent. This turned out to be the best news of the day. Soon thereafter, markets descended into the worst session since the grim early weeks of the pandemic. A few days ago we wrote this:

The latest ESG version of the S&P 500 index has a notable absentee, who took the exclusion with his customary grace. Exxon is rated top ten best in world for environment, social & governance (ESG) by S&P 500, while Tesla didn’t make the list! ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: Why Ukraine and Russia are fighting over a teeny island Marc FilippinoGood morning from the Financial Times. Today is Thursday, May 19, and this is your FT News Briefing. US retailers warned about their earnings and Wall Street crumbled. A tiny island in

Has the auction market hit its peak? The running total of the New York evening sales of fine art — and a dinosaur skeleton — was $1.9bn at the time of writing, within estimates and potentially with another half a billion dollars to come. Across just three evenings, 33 works sold for more than $10mn

The writer is chief investment officer of Muddy Waters Capital There’s a line in the comedy film Zoolander in which the protagonist, a vacuous and vain model, confesses to having considered volunteering to help underprivileged children. He then declares that “just thinking about it was the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had”. And it seems the

Marsh McLennan is arranging insurance for a controversial east African oil pipeline, putting the world’s largest broker at the centre of a project that has been shunned by major banks and prompted a backlash from its own staff. The $5bn East Africa Crude oil pipeline (Eacop), which will run from Uganda to the Tanzanian coast,

This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: Ukraine’s nationalists and the Azov battalion [MUSIC PLAYING] Gideon RachmanHello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. In this week’s edition, we’re looking at Ukrainian nationalism. Throughout this conflict Vladimir Putin has insisted that

The writer is dean of the Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po The emerging narrative from the war in Ukraine is that the surge in geopolitical risk will compound existing dissatisfaction with the global trade system and lead to fragmentation. Security will trump efficiency. Integration with like-minded partners will replace multilateralism. This narrative is neither

Since the financial crisis, corporate lawyers have aspired to build the ultimate ironclad merger contract that keeps buyers with cold feet from backing out. The “bulletproof” modern deal agreement now faces one of its biggest tests, as Elon Musk, the Tesla boss and richest person in the world, openly entertains the possibility of ditching his

Plots appear twice on Apple TV Plus: first as farce then as a tragedy-laden thriller. Four months ago the streaming service launched The Afterparty: an ensemble murder-mystery parody that centred on a group who find themselves implicated when a former classmate is killed after a school reunion. Arriving on the platform this week is a

An interesting little factoid out from Man Group earlier this week on the recent bout of market mayhem (our emphasis below): Since 1960, there have been 44 individual instances of the S&P 500 index enduring five or more consecutive down weeks. Since 1973, US Treasuries have had 31 such losing streaks lasting at least five

Tatyana, her husband and three children escaped the horrors of Mariupol several weeks ago, but relief only began to sink in when they made it to Estonia with help from an ad hoc network of Russian volunteers. The network, among them antiwar activists and general volunteers, is operating largely through word of mouth and groups

Three weeks ago, I used this column to explain why I was still not taking crypto seriously, despite the number of allegedly very serious and grown-up investors getting involved in it. Since then, the market has crashed by about 30 per cent, with many so-called “stablecoins” proving themselves to be anything but. Bitcoin’s value has

In 1980, the M-19 guerrilla movement stormed a diplomatic reception in Bogotá and kidnapped US envoy Diego Asencio, holding him and several other ambassadors hostage for two months before flying them to Cuba and releasing them. It was one of a number of audacious stunts pulled by the guerrillas in a crusade against the Colombian