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In the US tech sell off, Apple was regarded as the safest pair of hands. It has more than 2bn active devices and nearly 1bn people paying for services. Unlike many of its peers it pays dividends as well as buying back shares. A drop in revenue and net income in the last quarter does

Asian stocks declined while US futures steadied on Wednesday, as renewed fears about the health of regional banks in the US dented market sentiment ahead of a meeting of the Federal Reserve this week. South Korea’s Kospi declined 0.8 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 1.8 per cent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell

Chinese initial public offerings have raised more than five times as much money as those in the US this year as a crop of fresh listings in the world’s biggest economy failed to appear after a dire 2022. Rising interest rates, stubbornly high inflation and the recent turmoil in the US banking sector have dashed

Will the deadlock in the Ukraine war be broken in Bakhmut or Beijing? At the moment, all eyes are focused on the much-trailed Ukrainian counter-offensive — which is likely to begin soon. But there are also significant developments on the diplomatic front. Last week, Xi Jinping called Volodymyr Zelenskyy. On a recent visit to Kyiv,

Cutting ties with China would be “unthinkable for almost all of German industry”, the chief executive of automaker Mercedes-Benz has said, as Europe’s largest economy grapples with its deep reliance on Beijing. Ola Källenius said cutting ties with China was impossible and “not desirable”. “The major players in the global economy — Europe, the USA

Silicon Valley Bank’s failure last month stemmed from weakened regulations during the Trump administration and mis-steps by internal supervisors who were too slow to correct management blunders, the US Federal Reserve said in a scathing review of the lender’s implosion. The long-awaited report, released on Friday, had harsh words for the California bank’s management but

At a press conference alongside South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol in the White House Rose Garden this week, Joe Biden appeared to relish the possibility of a rematch against his one-time opponent Donald Trump. Asked whether he was the only Democrat capable of defeating Trump in 2024, the president, wearing his trademark aviator sunglasses,

The BBC is stuck in a “yesteryear” TV and radio era and needs more resources and regulatory certainty in order to compete in the global digital media market, MPs have warned. The broadcaster was contending with international rivals that have no public-service remit in a race to engage new audiences, according to a report by

European stocks sank at the open on Wednesday as weaker-than-expected earnings from ASM International, the Dutch chip tool manufacturer, reawakened investors fears of a coming economic slowdown. Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 and France’s CAC index both fell more than 1.1 per cent in the first hour of trade. ASMI dropped 11.8 per cent in Amsterdam

Asian stocks sold off sharply on Tuesday with investors growing increasingly nervous about the extent of China’s recovery and potential US restrictions on investments in the world’s second-biggest economy. China’s CSI 300 index dropped 0.8 per cent, taking its decline since last Tuesday to more than 5 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slipped

Beijing has been forced to backtrack after its ambassador to France sparked a furore in Europe at the weekend by questioning the legal status of former Soviet states and Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea. China’s foreign ministry on Monday contradicted the comments from Lu Shaye, who had infuriated European capitals and fuelled distrust about Beijing’s ambitions

Several countries, including the UK, US and Italy, have begun evacuations from Sudan, after a week of fighting between the country’s armed forces and a paramilitary group. British prime minister Rishi Sunak said “UK armed forces have completed a complex and rapid evacuation of British diplomats and their families”. The White House said it had

A lobbying firm is launching a one-year business engagement operation ahead of the next general election in what is likely to be one of multiple attempts to exploit the vacuum left by the crisis at the CBI. WPI Strategy, a public affairs group behind the imminent launch of “BizUK”, insisted that it was not trying

Many of the biggest names in British business quit the CBI on Friday after a second allegation of rape threatened the survival of the employers’ organisation. Groups ranging from insurer Aviva and car manufacturers Jaguar Land Rover and BMW to payments company Mastercard and retailer John Lewis said they were cancelling their memberships after the

Black market drones have been used in military attacks for years. Drones have been heavily used in the Ukraine war too, prompting speculation that China was involved. Beijing has denied widespread reports that the country exported drones to aid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The speculation highlights China’s growing dominance in commercial drone manufacturing. The government

Natural gas consumption in the EU fell almost 18 per cent in the eight months to March, exceeding the bloc’s target and easing fears of energy shortages caused by massive cuts to Russian imports. The large drop in gas usage by European households and businesses was aided by a milder winter. But it also reflected

Apple and Goldman Sachs are seeking to lure US depositors to a new savings account by offering to pay interest at more than 10 times the national average rate. The California tech giant and Wall Street bank on Monday launched a new savings account yielding 4.15 per cent a year, having first announced the product

Almost exactly a year ago, just before the IMF’s spring meeting, Janet Yellen, US Treasury secretary, launched a new buzzword: “friend-shoring”. The idea was that in a world of rising US-China tensions (and western hostility to Russia), American companies should move their “supply chains to a large number of trusted countries” — or friends. It

The writer is executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies Asia, and author of ‘The Billionaire Raj’ Two recent Beijing trips by global leaders have shed light on the many paradoxes of a future age of economic decoupling. A visit by Emmanuel Macron, president of France, and Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission

The cost of buying insurance against a US government default has shot to its highest level in more than a decade, in an early sign of market concerns about the political impasse in Washington over the debt ceiling. Amid a stalemate between the White House and congressional Republicans on raising the federal borrowing limit, the