Outside Zurich’s central station a statue of Alfred Escher looks proudly down Bahnhofstrasse, one of the world’s most expensive shopping streets, to Paradeplatz, the heart of the city’s financial district. Trains still trundle along the Swiss rail network that the 19th-century industrialist pioneered — but the bank he founded 167 years ago to finance its
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Switzerland has raised interest rates by half a percentage point, despite the financial turmoil that this week led to a rescue-takeover of one of the country’s largest lenders. The Swiss National Bank opted to plough ahead with its fourth consecutive interest rate rise, saying the chances of inflation becoming entrenched had risen. It follows a
UK inflation unexpectedly accelerated in February, adding to pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates again at its meeting on Thursday. The annual rate of consumer price inflation rose to 10.4 per cent in February, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. That was up from 10.1 per cent in January
Credit Suisse bondholders were in uproar on Monday and the European Central Bank raised concerns after the rescue deal by rival UBS wiped out $17bn of the failed Swiss bank’s bonds, upending debt recovery norms and undermining financial market confidence. “In my eyes, this is against the law,” said Patrik Kauffman, a fund manager at
Cash is no longer trash. Assets invested in US money market funds hit a record $5tn last week. Investors rattled by the collapse of three US banks and a crisis of confidence in smaller regional lenders scrambled for safe, liquid alternatives to park their assets. About $120bn flooded into US money market funds in the
Credit Suisse shares rebounded sharply on Thursday after the lender revealed plans to borrow up to SFr50bn ($54bn) from the Swiss central bank and buy back about SFr3bn of its debt in an attempt to boost liquidity and calm investors. The Swiss National Bank had said on Wednesday it was willing to provide a liquidity
The UK government will extend its energy price cap for households by an additional three months as it seeks to shield consumers during the cost of living crisis. The Energy Price Guarantee, which has capped typical annual energy bills at £2,500 this winter, will continue from April to June, saving a typical household £160 during
Credit Suisse said it had identified “material weaknesses” in its internal controls over financial reporting, the latest blow to a bank battling to revive its fortunes. In its annual report on Tuesday, Credit Suisse said “management did not design and maintain an effective risk assessment process to identify and analyse the risk of material misstatements
China has named a general who is under US sanctions as its new defence minister, creating an additional hurdle for military dialogue as the two countries fret that geopolitical tensions could boil over into conflict. Li Shangfu, an aerospace engineer with little previous international exposure, was confirmed as the top military official on Sunday. His
Something is going very wrong for teenagers. Between 1994 and 2010, the share of British teens who do not consider themselves likeable fell slightly from 6 per cent to 4 per cent; since 2010 it has more than doubled. The share who think of themselves as a failure, who worry a lot and who are
Russia has carried out one of its largest strikes on Ukraine including with nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles that hit cities and knocked off back-up power at Europe’s largest atomic plant. Of the more than 80 rockets fired, six were nuclear-capable hypersonic Kh-47 Kinzhal air-to-surface missiles, according to Ukrainian officials. The assault has left much of Kyiv
China’s foreign minister has warned of a clash with the US unless Washington ceases its attempts to contain Beijing, highlighting the Chinese Communist party’s concerns over escalating tension between the rival superpowers. “If the US doesn’t hit the brakes and continues to barrel down the wrong track, no amount of guardrails can prevent the carriage
America leads on innovation, and Europe on regulation, or so the conventional wisdom goes. But recently, the US seems to have taken the lead in the latter, particularly in politically powerful industries like technology, pharma and finance. Just last week, Eli Lilly, the producer of popular insulin medications Humalog and Humulin, pledged to reduce its
China will target an economic expansion of “around 5 per cent” for 2023 as President Xi Jinping seeks to restore pre-pandemic levels of growth and prepares to centralise power further in his own hands. Announcing the target, which was below last year’s goal of 5.5 per cent, China’s outgoing premier Li Keqiang told its rubber-stamp
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
If Elon Musk is right about Twitter being crucial to the future of civilisation, then things are looking bleak for us all. Outages are on the rise, advertising revenues have plunged, and a company that had a 7,500-strong workforce just four months ago now employs just 2,000, after yet another round of job cuts. When
China’s manufacturing sector expanded at its fastest pace in more than a decade in February, in one of the clearest signs that the world’s second-largest economy is shaking off the effects of a nationwide Covid-19 outbreak and years of growth-constraining pandemic curbs. The official manufacturing sector purchasing managers’ index hit 52.6 last month, according to
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 writer is chair of Rockefeller International The recent surge in tech stocks has true believers buzzing that the downturn of late last year is over and the boom of the past decade is back. But the opposite case is more likely. This surge had all the hallmarks of an echo bubble — a brief
Warren Buffett offered a full-throated defence of share buybacks in his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on Saturday, saying stock purchases by Berkshire and the dozens of publicly traded companies it owns are a boon to investors. The comments from the 92-year-old investor came in the shortest annual letter he has published in decades