每日晨读金融时报|英语口语听力|原文及实用单词短语

▸ Core gov­ern­ment bonds extend gains after soft US labour mar­ket data▸ Dol­lar advances, climb­ing against both the euro and ster­ling▸ Wall Street edges higher as investors lean into their bets on Fed rate cutsCore gov­ern­ment bonds made fur­ther gains glob­ally yes­ter­day after the latest sign of weak­ness in the Amer­ican labour mar­ket gave traders renewed hope of an interest rate cut by the US Fed­eral Reserve later this month.Data on US private payrolls came in weaker than ana­lysts had expec­ted while job­less claims were higher than fore­cast.Yields on bench­mark 10-year US Treas­ur­ies fell 3 basis points to 4.18 per cent. The two-year Treas­ury yield, which tends to move with interest rate expect­a­tions, fell 2bp to 3.60 per cent as investors bought the debt.The private payrolls fig­ure was the latest in a series of soft employ­ment data ahead of key US non-farm payrolls data today.A weak non-farm payrolls read­ing for July caused a stock mar­ket sell-off last month and — with mar­kets over­whelm­ingly expect­ing an interest rate cut this month — any unex­pec­ted strength in the jobs data could lead traders to trim their bets.Sub­stan­tial weak­ness in the jobs num­bers, however, could add to con­cerns over eco­nomic growth.

Shares in Google par­ent Alpha­bet rose yes­ter­day after the tech giant avoided a court order requir­ing it to be broken up fol­low­ing a rul­ing that it had cre­ated an illegal mono­poly.Judge Amit Mehta said the threat to Google’s search engine posed by arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence chat­bots was cru­cial to his decision to impose a less oner­ous set of require­ments on it.The US Depart­ment of Justice had argued that Google should have to sell its Chrome browser and, if neces­sary, its Android oper­at­ing sys­tem, after win­ning a land­mark judg­ment last year that the com­pany main­tained an illegal mono­poly in online search.The order falls short of the most extreme out­comes feared by investors, such as a full ban on advert­ising rev­enue share deals with the likes of Apple.Shares in Google par­ent Alpha­bet rose almost 7 per cent in New York trad­ing, while Apple gained about 3 per cent.Dan Ives, ana­lyst at Wed­bush Secur­it­ies, said Tues­day’s order was a “massive win” for the two com­pan­ies.

▸ Core gov­ern­ment bonds rally glob­ally after dis­ap­point­ing US eco­nomic data▸ UK gilt yields fall back from post-1998 high amid investor buy­ing▸ Wall Street strengthens ahead of this week’s key Amer­ican job num­bersBond mar­kets ral­lied yes­ter­day, recov­er­ing from a global sell-off, as dis­ap­point­ing data on Amer­ican job open­ings promp­ted bets that the US Fed­eral Reserve would cut rates more aggress­ively to sup­port the world's biggest eco­nomy.US job open­ings fell to 7.18mn in July accord­ing to closely watched JOLTS data, below the 7.38mn expec­ted by eco­nom­ists polled by Reu­ters — and down from 7.44mn for the pre­vi­ous month.Andy Bren­ner, head of inter­na­tional fixed income at Nat­Al­li­ance Secur­it­ies, said the job open­ings and other data show­ing higher lay-offs “got my atten­tion and the mar­ket's atten­tion”.The rally hal­ted a bond mar­ket slide that had pushed bor­row­ing costs in some big eco­nom­ies to their highest levels in years.Yields on 30-year US Treas­ur­ies fell 7 basis points to 4.90 per cent by mid­day in New York trad­ing as investors bought the debt — recov­er­ing after climb­ing to 5 per cent for the first time since July.The moves powered a recov­ery in sen­ti­ment towards sov­er­eign bonds around the world after Japan's 30-year yield earlier hit a record high and the UK's 30-year gilt yield reached a fresh post1998 high of 5.75 per cent.The 30-year gilt UK yield fell back to 5.62 per cent.

Hedge fund bil­lion­aire Ray Dalio has warned that Don­ald Trump’s Amer­ica is drift­ing into 1930s-style auto­cratic polit­ics — and said other investors were too scared of the pres­id­ent to speak up.The Bridge­wa­ter Asso­ciates founder told the Fin­an­cial Times that “gaps in wealth” were driv­ing “more extreme” policies in the US. “I think that what is hap­pen­ing now polit­ic­ally and socially is ana­log­ous to what happened around the world in the 1930-40 period,” he said.State inter­ven­tion in the private sec­tor, such as Trump’s decision to take a 10 per cent stake in chip­maker Intel, was the sort of “strong auto­cratic lead­er­ship that sprang out of the desire to take con­trol of the fin­an­cial and eco­nomic situ­ation”, Dalio said.His com­ments to the FT mark a rare cri­ti­cism of Trump by a prom­in­ent fin­an­cial fig­ure, des­pite mount­ing private alarm among some Wall Street investors at the pres­id­ent’s policies.“I am just describ­ing the cause-and-effect rela­tion­ships that are driv­ing what is hap­pen­ing,” he said. “And, by the way, dur­ing such times most people are silent because they are afraid of retali­ation if they cri­ti­cise.”

The pound fell sharply yes­ter­day as long-term bor­row­ing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998, with con­cerns over the coun­try’s pub­lic fin­ances com­bin­ing with a global move higher in bond yields.Ster­ling slumped as much as 1.5 per cent against the dol­lar to $1.334 before edging up to $1.338, put­ting it on track for its biggest one-day drop since April, a day after Sir Keir Starmer reshuffled his eco­nomic team.Adding to pres­sure on chan­cel­lor Rachel Reeves ahead of her Budget, the yield on the 30-year gilt rose 0.08 per­cent­age points to 5.72 per cent at one point. Bond yields rise as prices fall. UK bor­row­ing costs are the highest in the G7, driven up in recent years by per­sist­ent infla­tion and rising pub­lic debt.The higher yields — if sus­tained — will fur­ther erode the chan­cel­lor’s head­room against her key fiscal rule.Lord Ken Clarke, a former Con­ser­vat­ive chan­cel­lor, claimed that Bri­tain was “much nearer to the risk of a fin­an­cial crisis than the gov­ern­ment is remotely acknow­ledging” and claimed it was not impossible it would have to seek a bail­out from the IMF. 

▸ Global stocks fall as gov­ern­ment bond sell-off spills into equit­ies trad­ing▸ World’s biggest lis­ted com­pany Nvidia extends last week’s declines▸ Gold hits record with investors look­ing for safe altern­at­ives to sov­er­eign debtGlobal stocks fell yes­ter­day as a sell-off in gov­ern­ment bonds spilled into the equity mar­ket, extend­ing the recent wobble for tech shares on Wall Street.The US blue-chip S&P 500 index was down 1.4 per cent by mid­day in New York while the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite dropped 1.6 per cent as major equit­ies indices in Europe also declined.The falls came amid pres­sure on US Treas­ur­ies and other gov­ern­ment debt, partly due to investor wor­ries over rising debt piles in many major eco­nom­ies.“The risk-off sen­ti­ment today is broader mar­ket unease stem­ming from the bond mar­ket,” said Mar­ija Veit­mane, head of equity research at State Street Mar­kets.Yes­ter­day's moves on Wall Street exten­ded declines from Fri­day's ses­sion when the Nas­daq Com­pos­ite dropped 1.2 per cent and the S&P 500 fell 0.6 per cent.

JPMor­gan Chase has hired a record num­ber of senior com­mer­cial and invest­ment bankers in the past year as part of an assault on mar­kets it is tar­get­ing for growth.The Wall Street bank has poached about 100 man­aging dir­ect­ors from com­pet­it­ors includ­ing Gold­man Sachs and Cit­ig­roup since early last year, people famil­iar with the details told the Fin­an­cial Times.The recruit­ment cam­paign has sig­ni­fic­antly exceeded hir­ing in pre­vi­ous years, the people added, not­ing that JPMor­gan has brought more man­aging dir­ect­ors into its global bank­ing divi­sion over the past 12 months than it did in the pre­vi­ous dec­ade.“We have stealth­ily hired from across the street and we are con­tinu­ing to hire,” one of the people said.The spree was launched fol­low­ing an internal review when JPMor­gan com­bined its com­mer­cial, invest­ment and cor­por­ate bank­ing units in early 2024, accord­ing to one of the people. JPMor­gan declined to com­ment. The bank wants to boost its mar­ket share in invest­ment bank­ing sub­sect­ors includ­ing health­care, tech­no­logy and infra­struc­ture. It is also look­ing to expand in Europe and Asia and build out its middle mar­ket bank­ing busi­ness.

Shares in Bri­tain’s biggest banks tumbled yes­ter­day amid mount­ing fears that the chan­cel­lor might raise taxes on the sec­tor in the autumn Budget to bol­ster the strained pub­lic fin­ances.Nat­W­est, Lloyds Bank­ing Group and Barclays exper­i­enced some of their worst sell-offs in months as the Treas­ury faced calls to intro­duce a new levy on bank profits.Nat­W­est fell as much as 5.9 per cent before clos­ing down 4.9 per cent, the worst per­former on the FTSE 100.Nat­W­est closed down 4.9 per cent, the worst per­former on the FTSE 100, while Lloyds fell 3.4 per centLloyds, which is often seen as a bell­wether for the UK eco­nomy, fell 5 per cent before par­ing back its losses to 3.4 per cent. Barclays stock ended the day 2.2 per cent lower.The banks dragged the index to its fourth straight days of losses for the first time since US Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump announced sweep­ing tar­iffs in April.The falls came as the Fin­an­cial Times repor­ted that banks were braced for min­is­ters to intro­duce a sur­charge on profits or even a new bank levy to help fill a fiscal hole estim­ated by eco­nom­ists to be at least £20bn.

▸ Wall Street retreats after infla­tion data under­scores fears over interest rates▸ US gov­ern­ment bor­row­ing costs rise as investors off­load bench­mark Treas­ur­ies▸ Paris stocks extend declines in week of polit­ical tur­moil in FranceWall Street stocks dropped yes­ter­day after infla­tion data under­scored investors' nervous­ness about the tra­ject­ory of interest rate cuts in the world's biggest eco­nomy.The tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index had fallen 1.2 per cent by early after­noon in New York. The blue-chip S&P 500 index was down 0.8 per cent.The Per­sonal Con­sump­tion Expendit­ures price index — the cent­ral bank's pre­ferred meas­ure of infla­tion — rose 2.6 per cent in July. That was in line with ana­lysts' expect­a­tions but above the US Fed­eral Reserve's 2 per cent tar­get.“We expect tar­iff-related price pres­sures to exert fur­ther upward pres­sure on core infla­tion in the com­ing months,” said Pooja Sri­ram, vice­pres­id­ent for US eco­nom­ics at Barclays.Per­sist­ently high infla­tion would be a hurdle to the cent­ral bank cut­ting its bench­mark interest rate.

Nigel Far­age has prom­ised the mass deport­a­tion of irreg­u­lar migrants and to take the UK out of the European Con­ven­tion on Human Rights.The Reform UK leader said his party would also dis­ap­ply the 1951 UN Refugee Con­ven­tion for a five-year period, along with “any other bar­ri­ers” that would pre­vent the deport­a­tion of irreg­u­lar migrants to their home coun­tries or a safe third coun­try.Speak­ing in Oxford­shire yes­ter­day, Far­age said urgent action was needed to tackle pub­lic con­cerns about irreg­u­lar migra­tion, which has risen up the polit­ical agenda amid protests over the use of hotels to house asylum seekers.“We are not very far away from major civil dis­order,” he said. “We have to leave the ECHR, no ifs, no buts . . . We have to repeal the Human Rights Act.”The ECHR and the Human Rights Act, which require the courts to take into account rul­ings by the European Court of Human Rights, have been cited to block the deport­a­tion of asylum seekers. 

▸ Wall Street reacts in muted fash­ion after Trump threat to fire Fed’s Cook▸ Investors sell long-dated Treas­ur­ies but buy shorter-term US debt▸ European stocks fall on pro­spect of renewed polit­ical tur­moil in FranceUS stock mar­kets were muted yes­ter­day des­pite Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump's renewed attacks on the coun­try's cent­ral bank.Trump said on Monday even­ing that he would fire US Fed­eral Reserve gov­ernor Lisa Cook, “effect­ive imme­di­ately”. Cook has said she will remain in her post and chal­lenge any attempt to remove her.Des­pite warn­ings that Trump's move could under­mine the abil­ity of the world's most import­ant cent­ral bank to con­trol infla­tion, equity mar­kets were little changed.The blue-chip S&P 500 index was flat by early after­noon in New York while the Nas­daq Com­pos­ite was 0.2 per cent higher.“The muted ini­tial reac­tion to this escal­a­tion may reflect Trump's prior com­ments fore­shad­ow­ing the move, as well as lim­ited con­vic­tion on whether Trump has the legal grounds to fol­low through on the threat,” said Ulrike Hoff­mann-Burch­ardi, global head of equit­ies at UBS Global Wealth Man­age­ment.

Private equity firms are strug­gling to raise money des­pite offer­ing wide­spread entice­ments to attract new investor cash, under­scor­ing the depth of the con­trac­tion that is dent­ing the industry’s prof­it­ab­il­ity.They raised just $592bn in the 12 months to June, their low­est tally for seven years, accord­ing to data from Pre­qin. The decline came even though firms offered man­age­ment fee cuts, “early-bird dis­counts” for investors who com­mit quickly to new funds and other incent­ives.PE firms “are offer­ing a smor­gas­bord of dis­counts”, said Marco Masotti, global head of private equity fun­drais­ing at law firm Paul Weiss, who added in a report by the firm that they were “facing mount­ing fee pres­sure and agree­ing to a cas­cade of dis­counts”.The industry’s fun­drais­ing has shrunk by nearly a third from its record levels in 2021. Higher interest rates and a slow­down in deal­mak­ing have left firms unable to sell tril­lions of dol­lars in age­ing invest­ments, caus­ing grow­ing frus­tra­tion among investors, many of whom are refus­ing to back funds.

Former money man­ager and star stock­picker Neil Wood­ford urged the UK Fin­an­cial Con­duct Author­ity against clos­ing his fund, warn­ing that it would cause “need­less and sig­ni­fic­ant investor det­ri­ment”.Wood­ford opened his eponym­ous firm Wood­ford Invest­ment Man­age­ment in 2014, before his flag­ship Equity Income fund was sus­pen­ded in June 2019. Its wind­ing-up was announced on Octo­ber 15 that year.Some 300,000 investors were left in the £3.6bn fund when it was sus­pen­ded, in what became one of the UK’s biggest retail invest­ment scan­dals. The FCA said in 2023 that a redress scheme would enable investors to recover around 77p in the pound.A let­ter sent to the FCA by Wood­ford Invest­ment Man­age­ment’s law­yers on Octo­ber 14 2019 showed that WIM urged the fin­an­cial reg­u­lator against clos­ing the fund, warn­ing that it would crys­tal­lise big­ger losses for investors than if it were restruc­tured and reopened.

Jay Pow­ell has opened the door to a Fed­eral Reserve interest rate cut in Septem­ber, as the cent­ral bank chair said a soften­ing US labour mar­ket could off­set risks that Don­ald Trump’s tar­iffs will hurt infla­tion.“The baseline out­look and the shift­ing bal­ance of risks may war­rant adjust­ing our policy stance,” Pow­ell said at the Fed’s eco­nomic sum­mit in Jack­son Hole, Wyom­ing, yes­ter­day.The remarks put Pow­ell in the camp of doves on the rate-set­ting Fed­eral Open Mar­ket Com­mit­tee and sig­nal that he could sup­port a quarter-point cut at the bank’s meet­ing next month.US gov­ern­ment debt ral­lied strongly after his speech. The yield on the twoyear Treas­ury note fell 0.1 per­cent­age points to 3.69 per cent. The S&P 500 index jumped 1.6 per cent, while the dol­lar dropped about 0.9 per cent against a bas­ket of half a dozen peers.The speech comes at a pivotal time for the Fed. The US pres­id­ent has launched a fierce cam­paign against Pow­ell and other top Fed offi­cials, insist­ing the cent­ral bank should drastic­ally cut rates.The Fed has instead held its main rate at a 4.25-4.5 per cent range this year, fol­low­ing 1 per­cent­age point of cuts in 2024, as some offi­cials worry Trump’s tar­iffs on trad­ing part­ners will ignite a fresh surge in infla­tion.

▸ Global stocks boos­ted by Fed chair Pow­ell’s remarks at cent­ral bank sum­mit▸ US gov­ern­ment bonds rally as investors price in faster rate cuts▸ European indices also buoyed late in trad­ing day by Jack­son Hole speechGlobal stocks rose yes­ter­day after US Fed­eral Reserve chair Jay Pow­ell indic­ated that the case for an interest rate cut by the world's most import­ant cent­ral bank had strengthened.At his speech in Jack­son Hole, Wyom­ing, at the annual meet­ing of cent­ral bank poli­cy­makers, Pow­ell said that “shift­ing” eco­nomic risks have sharpened the case for a rate cut and warned about a cool­ing labour mar­ket.Investors cheered the speech, send­ing stocks and bonds higher. By mid­day in New York, the blue-chip S&P 500 was 1.5 per cent higher and the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite had risen 1.7 per cent.Cyc­lical stocks, which tend to climb along­side hopes for a stronger eco­nomy, led the stock mar­ket gains. A bas­ket of con­sumer dis­cre­tion­ary stocks rose 2.7 per cent.

Insti­tu­tional investors should put more money into hedge funds to gen­er­ate poten­tially higher returns amid warn­ings of global eco­nomic uncer­tainty, infla­tion volat­il­ity and geo­pol­it­ical instabil­ity, strategists at Black­Rock have said.The Black­Rock Invest­ment Insti­tute said yes­ter­day: “We believe investors can hold up to 5 per­cent­age points more in hedge funds today than they did before 2020.” This is the biggest alloc­a­tion increase to the sec­tor ever recom­men­ded by the insti­tute, which is part of the world’s largest asset man­ager.There are tent­at­ive signs that the hedge fund industry has been emer­ging from a period of lacklustre per­form­ance, with many insti­tu­tional investors hav­ing pre­ferred to alloc­ate funds to private equity and private credit.The Black­Rock strategists said they saw “hedge funds emer­ging as a key tool in port­fo­lio con­struc­tion as a res­ult”, which “jus­ti­fies boost­ing alloc­a­tions to hedge fund strategies in port­fo­lios”.“One way to fund the increase to hedge funds would be by trim­ming developed mar­ket gov­ern­ment bonds and equit­ies . . . with no change to the private mar­ket alloc­a­tion,” they added.

▸ Core gov­ern­ment bonds sell off as investors eye mon­et­ary policy clues▸ Wall Street extends declines after Wal­mart warn­ing on Trump’s tar­iffs▸ European stocks lack dir­ec­tion although Paris index under­per­formsCore gov­ern­ment bonds sold off yes­ter­day as investors focused on the annual cent­ral bankers' meet­ing at Jack­son Hole for clues about the future path of mon­et­ary policy.A gauge of US eco­nomic activ­ity in both the ser­vices and man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tors was stronger than ana­lysts had expec­ted.The closely watched S&P pur­chas­ing man­agers' index showed a read­ing of 53.3 for the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, well above the 49.5 pro­jec­ted, while the ser­vices sec­tor read­ing of 55.4 also beat the expect­a­tion of 54.2. A read­ing over 50 indic­ates expan­sion.Gold­man Sachs ana­lysts said they had increased their pro­jec­tion for thirdquarter US GDP growth after the PMI data, rais­ing it by 0.1 per­cent­age points to 1.5 per cent annu­al­ised growth.Yields on bench­mark 10-year Treas­ur­ies rose 5 basis points to 4.35 per cent after the data as investors bet that the US Fed­eral Reserve might be more likely to hold interest rates steady.

Accel­er­at­ing UK infla­tion has left the gap with Euro­zone price growth at its widest in nearly two years, new data showed yes­ter­day, under­scor­ing the stub­born price pres­sures con­front­ing the Bank of Eng­land.The UK’s con­sumer prices index rose 3.8 per cent in the year to July, accord­ing to the Office for National Stat­ist­ics, an unex­pec­tedly sharp pick-up from June’s 3.6 per cent read­ing.By con­trast, Euro­zone infla­tion held steady in the same month at 2 per cent, sep­ar­ate Euro­stat num­bers showed, with a read­ing of just 0.9 per cent in France. The 1.8 per­cent­age point gap between UK and euro area infla­tion was the widest since Septem­ber 2023.The fig­ures under­score the chal­lenge facing the BoE as it pre­pares for infla­tion to reach as high as 4 per cent, double its offi­cial tar­get, in the com­ing months.Wage growth is prov­ing stick­ier in the UK than in the euro area, ana­lysts said, with chan­cel­lor Rachel Reeves’ increases in employer national insur­ance con­tri­bu­tions and a boost to the liv­ing wage con­trib­ut­ing to more per­sist­ent price growth. 

▸ Pro­spect of fur­ther rate cuts drags New Zea­l­and dol­lar lower▸ Eco­nom­ists note ‘big shift in tone’ from pre­vi­ous meet­ing of NZ cent­ral bank▸ Ana­lysts argue that forex trades do not sig­nal a resur­gence for US dol­larThe New Zea­l­and dol­lar slumped to a four-month low after the coun­try's cent­ral bank lowered interest rates and sig­nalled fur­ther cuts to com­bat a weak domestic eco­nomy and global uncer­tainty over Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump's US tar­iffs.The Reserve Bank of New Zea­l­and cut interest rates by a quarter of a per­cent­age point to 3 per cent — as expec­ted — but said two of the six mem­bers of its Mon­et­ary Policy Com­mit­tee voted for a big­ger cut of half a per­cent­age point.Eco­nom­ists at RBC Cap­ital Mar­kets said the out­look rep­res­en­ted a “big shift in tone” from the July meet­ing when the cent­ral bank held interest rates amid con­cerns over infla­tion.ANZ, the Aus­tralian bank, said it now expec­ted two fur­ther interest rate cuts after the dovish pivot.The New Zea­l­and dol­lar fell 1.1 per cent against the US dol­lar to a four-month low.

▸ European equit­ies advance on signs of pro­gress for a Ukraine cease­fire▸ Weaker US tech­no­logy stocks drag Wall Street bench­marks lower▸ Japan­ese gov­ern­ment bonds slip after weak demand at a debt auc­tionEuropean stocks rose yes­ter­day, buoyed by signs of pro­gress in efforts to bring about a cease­fire in Ukraine.US Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump warned Rus­sia's Pres­id­ent Vladi­mir Putin that he would face a “rough situ­ation” if he did not co-oper­ate in nego­ti­ations to end the war.After Monday's meet­ing with European lead­ers at the White House, Trump also said the US could assist the con­tin­ent in provid­ing secur­ity guar­an­tees to Ukraine if there was a cease­fire.The region-wide Stoxx Europe 600 index rose 0.7 per cent. In Paris, the Cac 40 index jumped 1.2 per cent while Frank­furt's Xetra Dax index climbed 0.5 per cent. The Swiss Mar­ket Index gained 1.2 per cent.In Lon­don, the FTSE 100 index advanced 0.4 per cent to a record high.Defence com­pan­ies pulled European stock mar­kets lower as investors con­sidered the implic­a­tions of an end to the con­flict for weapons man­u­fac­tur­ers.