Cryptocurrency prices have soared as investors breathed a sigh of relief that US regulators moved to bolster the US banking system after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Bitcoin and ether, the two most widely-traded coins, have surged by a fifth since their lows on Friday as traders were reassured by promises from US authorities
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US regulators said depositors of Silicon Valley Bank would be fully repaid and took control of another lender as they acted to shore up the banking system and stem contagion after the lender’s implosion. The Federal Reserve announced a new lending facility aimed at providing extra funding to eligible institutions to ensure that “banks have
Circle, the operator of one of the world’s largest stablecoins, has said $3.3bn of its reserves are trapped in Silicon Valley Bank, triggering a fall in the value of its token as the crypto market reels from the failure of two US banks this week. The announcement from Circle overnight on Friday prompted the company’s
The financial sector has been, uh, thoroughly spooked by a 60-per-cent single-day slide in the shares of SVB Financial, the holding company for Silicon Valley Bank. SVB hasn’t done much better in after-hours trading, sliding more than 20 per cent after reports that venture capital firms such as Founders Fund (co-founded by Peter Thiel) are
Here is a thought experiment. If Taiwan did not exist, would the US and China still be at loggerheads? My hunch is yes. Antagonism between top dogs and rising powers is part of the human story. The follow-up is whether such tensions would persist if China were a democracy rather than a one-party state. That
Wall Street stocks declined and the yield on short-term US government debt soared after Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell warned that the central bank could more aggressively raise interest rates if the economy grows too quickly. Powell’s comments sent the yield on the policy-sensitive two-year US Treasury above 5 per cent for the first time
History shows that heavy spending on armaments may reduce rather than increase stability. Still, the two goals align nicely for delegates at China’s annual National People’s Congress. Within Chinese business, this will create winners among defence companies and losers across many other sectors. Chinese premier Li Keqiang mentioned the word “stability” 33 times in his
The Swiss financial regulator has concluded its two-year investigation into Credit Suisse’s failings over the collapse of specialist finance firm Greensill Capital, finding there had been a “serious breach of Swiss supervisory law”. The implosion of Greensill in March 2021 caused Credit Suisse to suspend and close $10bn worth of funds that had lent money
The biggest selling point for the UK stock market in recent months has been its slow, steady, boring nature. This is a quality that should not be taken for granted. The era dominated by whizz-bang, US tech-led stocks is fading. Sure, it made a good shot at reasserting itself in the final months of last
This winter, American realtors have a plethora of problems to ponder. Surging interest rates have created a frozen residential housing market and shifting working practices will push office vacancies to 55 per cent above their pre-pandemic peak by 2030, according to new research from Cushman & Wakefield. The prospect of stranded assets looms. But if
Western allies are pushing the United Arab Emirates to halt exports of critical goods to Russia as they seek to starve Vladimir Putin’s military of components to sustain its war against Ukraine. Officials from the US, EU and UK have in recent weeks visited the wealthy Gulf state to spell out the wide-ranging scope of
Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata Motors is demanding more than £500mn of government aid for a new battery factory in Britain, in a decision set to be “pivotal” for the future of the UK car industry. People briefed on discussions say the Indian group is close to choosing between Spain and south-west England for its
President Joe Biden’s speech in Warsaw was thickly coated in the kind of idealistic rhetoric many western Europeans discreetly roll their eyes at. Of Vladimir Putin, he said: “He thought autocrats like himself were tough and leaders of democracies were soft . . . And then, he met the iron will of America and the nations everywhere that refused
Joe Biden has said he did not think China would send weapons to Russia to help its military campaign in Ukraine, in comments that appeared to undercut claims from his top officials that Beijing was considering the idea. In an interview with ABC television on Friday that was aired on the evening of the anniversary
HM Revenue & Customs has launched a crackdown on the booming short-term lettings market by initially targeting about 1,000 property owners that it suspects have not paid enough tax. Based on information received from online bookings platforms such as Airbnb, the UK tax agency is sending its first so-called “nudge” letters this month to those
At a small rural farm about an hour’s drive from the Zambian capital city of Lusaka in late January, US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen stood before a gathering of farmers and told them she understood the destruction that global warming was causing. “We know that over the past decade, storms, floods, and droughts in Africa
US stocks fell on Wednesday after investors pored over the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s last meeting, which indicated that most central bankers backed its recent quarter-point increase but some favoured a bigger rise. In New York, the blue-chip S&P 500 index lost 0.2 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 0.1 per cent,
US stocks recorded their worst day in two months on Tuesday, as investors were unnerved by economic data suggesting interest rates have further to rise after months of increases by the Federal Reserve. The blue-chip S&P 500 index ended down 2 per cent, with declines in every sector. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slid 2.5 per
Less than half of the financial aid pledged to Ukraine by the west has actually reached Kyiv since Russia’s invasion last year, according to analysis of international financial support. Ukraine’s finance ministry received €31bn by December 2022 of the €64bn promised by western countries after Russia launched its full-scale attack last February, research by the
Poland’s head of state has called on Nato powers to give postwar security guarantees to Ukraine, on the eve of a visit by the US president to Warsaw to reaffirm the west’s support for Kyiv a year into Russia’s war. Andrzej Duda told the Financial Times that promises of security guarantees “would be important” for