每日晨读金融时报|英语口语听力|原文及实用单词短语

UK com­pan­ies attrac­ted a surge of interest from for­eign buy­ers eager to cap­it­al­ise on cheap valu­ations this year, driv­ing Brit­ish deal­mak­ing to a post­pan­demic high.Over­seas bid­ders agreed $142bn in takeovers of Brit­ish com­pan­ies, accord­ing to data from the Lon­don Stock Exchange Group — a 74 per cent uptick from 2024. The sharp rise out­paced a 20 per cent increase in over­all UK mer­gers and acquis­i­tions to a total value of $367bn, the highest level since the pan­demic-era boom.“The UK stock mar­ket remains mater­i­ally under­val­ued,” said Philip Noblet, head of UK and Ire­land invest­ment bank­ing at Jef­fer­ies.“The rat­ings are still poor [com­pared] to rival com­pan­ies in the US but also in Europe, so people keep com­ing . . . We’re going to see more stra­tegic interest from over­seas in 2026 and for big­ger com­pan­ies,” he added.

▸ Wall Street’s Nas­daq extends bounce­back as tech jit­ters recede▸ Japan­ese bond yields climb to their highest level since 1999▸ Global crude oil, gold and bit­coin prices all advanceWall Street stocks rose yes­ter­day as mar­kets exten­ded a rebound from recent tech jit­ters.The Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index was up 1 per cent by early after­noon in New York while the blue-chip S&P 500 index rose 0.8 per cent.The moves con­tin­ued the pre­vi­ous day’s rally when equit­ies were boos­ted by lower than expec­ted infla­tion data and memory chip­maker Micron’s strong earn­ings.Micron’s res­ults had “reignited optim­ism in the AI trade”, said Ulrike Hoff­mann-Burch­ardi, global head of equit­ies at UBS Global Wealth Man­age­ment.Dis­ap­point­ing earn­ings from Oracle and Broad­com last week triggered a broader tech-sell off amid linger­ing con­cerns over high tech sec­tor valu­ations.Shares in Oracle climbed 7.7 per cent after Tik­Tok owner Byte­Dance signed a deal with the com­pany and oth­ers to allow it to con­tinue oper­at­ing the app in the US, resolv­ing a year-long saga over the coun­try’s national secur­ity law.

OpenAI has hired former chan­cel­lor George Osborne to lead the start-up’s work build­ing “demo­cratic” arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence for the world.The archi­tect of the former Con­ser­vat­ive gov­ern­ment’s aus­ter­ity pro­gramme is set to play a lead­ing role within the high-spend­ing com­pany as the head of OpenAI for Coun­tries, an over­seas expan­sion of the $500bn Star­gate ini­ti­at­ive to build data centres in the US.The Chat­GPT maker has billed Star­gate as a way to ensure Amer­ican com­pan­ies and val­ues are at the found­a­tion of the global build-out of AI, provid­ing a bul­wark against Chinese altern­at­ives.“I asked myself the ques­tion, ‘What’s the most excit­ing and prom­ising com­pany in the world right now?’ The answer I believe is OpenAI,” said Osborne, adding that his work would help “soci­et­ies around the world share the oppor­tun­ity this power­ful tech­no­logy brings”.

▸ Wall Street retreats as eco­nomic data sug­gests a weak­en­ing labour mar­ket▸ Big Tech stocks steady after heavy losses in recent ses­sions▸ US gov­ern­ment bond prices rise but dol­lar slides against major cur­ren­ciesUS stocks slipped yes­ter­day after eco­nomic data sug­ges­ted a weak­en­ing labour mar­ket in the world’s largest eco­nomy.The blue-chip S&P 500 index was down 0.5 per cent by lunch­time in New York while the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite slipped 0.1 per cent. Both indices remain close to record highs.Some of the big US tech stocks took a breather after heavy losses in recent days, which began after dis­ap­point­ing earn­ings from Oracle and Broad­com last week. Oracle was up 1.6 per cent and Broad­com rose 0.4 per cent.Offi­cial data showed that the US unem­ploy­ment rate rose to 4.6 per cent in Novem­ber, the highest level since Septem­ber 2021, and above eco­nom­ists’ expect­a­tions of 4.4 per cent.

Fed­eral Reserve gov­ernor Stephen Miran has said that “phantom infla­tion” is dis­tort­ing the US cent­ral bank’s decision-mak­ing and caus­ing it to keep interest rates too high.Miran, a staunch ally of Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump and vocal pro­ponent of lower rates, said yes­ter­day that poli­cy­makers should dis­reg­ard near-term “noise” and set bor­row­ing costs for the long term.“We must be thought­ful in con­sid­er­ing genu­ine under­ly­ing infla­tion­ary pres­sures,” Miran told an audi­ence at Columbia Uni­versity.The Fed cut rates by 25 basis points at each of its past three meet­ings. Last week it reduced them to a three-year low of between 3.5 and 3.75 per cent.The rate-set­ting Fed­eral Open Mar­ket Com­mit­tee has been divided over the scale of the cuts and whether to pri­or­it­ise risks to infla­tion or the labour mar­ket. Three of its mem­bers dis­sen­ted from last week’s decision — includ­ing Miran, who wanted a lar­ger cut of 50bp.

▸ Wall Street’s AI stocks retreat as investor jit­ters reignite over valu­ations▸ Euro notches fourth suc­cess­ive day of gains to hit highest level since Octo­ber▸ Oil prices ease as Zelenskyy says he will give up Nato mem­ber­ship demandStocks linked to arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence mostly fell yes­ter­day, con­tinu­ing last week’s sell-off as investor jit­ters reignited around AI share valu­ations and high cap­ital spend­ing.Chip­maker Broad­com was down 4.8 per cent by early after­noon in New York, hav­ing plunged more than 15 per cent in the three trad­ing days since last week’s record high. Oracle was down 2.8 per cent, also extend­ing last week’s falls.Shares in the two com­pan­ies have fallen heav­ily since both repor­ted res­ults last week amid resur­gent con­cerns around AI-linked com­pan­ies’ soar­ing invest­ments in infra­struc­ture.

Net­flix has agreed an $83bn takeover of Warner Bros Dis­cov­ery, hand­ing it con­trol of one of Hol­ly­wood’s most cel­eb­rated stu­dios and cre­at­ing a global enter­tain­ment power­house.The deal will trans­form the stream­ing giant into the dom­in­ant player in Hol­ly­wood, cap­ping its relent­lessly dis­rupt­ive rise since it was foun­ded as a DVD rental com­pany almost three dec­ades ago.The stream­ing giant will secure a lib­rary that includes the Harry Pot­ter fran­chise and HBO’s premium pro­gram­mingUnder the deal, Net­flix will secure a coveted lib­rary of con­tent includ­ing the Harry Pot­ter and Bat­man fran­chises, WBD’s stream­ing busi­ness and the premium pro­gram­ming of HBO.WBD will con­tinue with a spin-off of its cable tele­vi­sion net­works, includ­ing CNN, Dis­cov­ery and Turner, into a sep­ar­ate com­pany before the stu­dios and stream­ing busi­nesses are sold to Net­flix.Net­flix saw off rivals Com­cast and Para­mount in a bid­ding war over­seen by WBD boss David Zaslav, one of the most power­ful fig­ures in the industry.

▸ US stocks near record highs after infla­tion data lifts hopes of Fed rate cut▸ Green­back up slightly against bas­ket of other major cur­ren­cies.▸ European equit­ies mixed, with French index dip­ping as Ger­many’s climbsUS stocks edged up yes­ter­day, near­ing record highs after infla­tion data that investors judged will keep the Fed­eral Reserve on track to cut interest rates next week.The blue-chip S&P 500 index had risen by 0.2 per cent by early after­noon in New York, while the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite had also gained 0.2 per cent.Equit­ies’ muted gains came as per­sonal con­sump­tion expendit­ures infla­tion fig­ures for Septem­ber, delayed by the gov­ern­ment shut­down, rein­forced expect­a­tions that the Fed would cut interest rates at its meet­ing this month.Core PCE — the cent­ral bank’s pre­ferred meas­ure — was slightly lower than expec­ted year on year, at 2.8 per cent, down 0.1 per cent from August. Monthly core PCE stayed steady at 0.2 per cent.

Bond investors have warned the US Treas­ury about Kevin Has­sett’s poten­tial appoint­ment as Fed­eral Reserve chair, amid fears that he would cut interest rates aggress­ively to please Don­ald Trump.The Treas­ury last month soli­cited feed­back on Has­sett and other can­did­ates from exec­ut­ives at Wall Street banks, asset man­age­ment firms and other par­ti­cipants in the debt mar­ket, accord­ing to people famil­iar with the con­ver­sa­tions.The dis­cus­sions took place before Treas­ury sec­ret­ary Scott Bes­sent held his second round of inter­views with can­did­ates to replace Jay Pow­ell as Fed chair when his term expires in May 2026, these people said.Has­sett, the White House’s senior eco­nomic offi­cial, has emerged as a fron­trun­ner for the pos­i­tion in recent weeks, as Trump and Bes­sent have cut the list of can­did­ates from 11 ini­tial con­tenders.Trump said on Tues­day he planned to name his pick for Fed chair “early” next year and sig­nalled Has­sett was a “poten­tial” con­tender.

▸ Pound jumps against the dol­lar amid signs of strength in UK eco­nomy▸ US blue-chip and tech-heavy indices inch higher in early trad­ing▸ Brent crude climbs to $63 a bar­rel while gold remains roughly flatThe pound jumped against the dol­lar yes­ter­day, put­ting it on course for its best day since May, as stronger eco­nomic activ­ity triggered an unwind­ing of neg­at­ive bets against the cur­rency.Signs of strength in the UK eco­nomy, com­bined with a weaker dol­lar, pushed ster­ling up 0.9 per cent to $1.333, its highest level for more than a month.A closely watched sur­vey showed yes­ter­day that UK busi­ness activ­ity expan­ded at a stronger pace than expec­ted, paint­ing a rosier pic­ture of the coun­try’s eco­nomy.The S&P Global UK Com­pos­ite pur­chas­ing man­agers’ index for Novem­ber came in at 51.2, com­pared with ana­lysts’ expect­a­tions of 50.5. A read­ing above 50 indic­ates expan­sion in activ­ity since the pre­vi­ous month.

OpenAI’s huge early lead in the race to dom­in­ate arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is under the greatest pres­sure since Chat­GPT’s launch, as rivals Google and Anthropic gain ground in the cut­ting-edge sec­tor.Three years on from the debut of its pop­u­lar chat­bot, the $500bn start-up is grap­pling with the real­ity of soar­ing data centre costs, the tech­nical chal­lenges of remain­ing at the fron­tier of AI and the con­stant battle to retain tal­ent.It is also facing a resur­gent Google, with the release last month of Gem­ini 3, Google’s latest large lan­guage model, which is con­sidered to have leapfrogged OpenAI’s GPT-5 and achieved gains from the model train­ing pro­cess that have eluded OpenAI in recent months.“It’s quite a strong dif­fer­ence with the world we had two years ago where OpenAI was lead­ing ahead of every­one else,” said Thomas Wolf, co-founder and chief sci­ence officer of open-source start-up Hug­ging Face. “It’s a new world.”

▸ Global bond yields jump after BoJ gov­ernor hints at interest rate increase▸ Tech sec­tor leads US stocks down as investors scale back expos­ure to risk▸ Bit­coin under fur­ther pres­sure and falls 7% to be down 20% in past monthGlobal bond mar­kets dropped yes­ter­day after the Bank of Japan sig­nalled that it could raise interest rates later this month.Japan’s two-year gov­ern­ment bond yield jumped above 1 per cent for the first time since 2008 yes­ter­day after Bank of Japan gov­ernor Kazuo Ueda indic­ated that the cent­ral bank might raise interest rates this month. Longer-term debt also fell, with the 10-year yield up 0.07 per­cent­age points to 1.87 per cent.The jump in Japan­ese yields, which move inversely with price, rippled through fixed income mar­kets, spark­ing declines from Ger­many to the US.US Treas­ury yields yes­ter­day recor­ded their biggest daily rise in a month, with the two-year yield rising 0.05 per­cent­age points to 3.54 per cent as traders scaled back expect­a­tions of interest rate cuts in 2026. 

Valu­ations of US tech stocks such as Nvidia, Alpha­bet, Microsoft and Meta have become “stretched” as investors are driven by “fears of miss­ing out”, the European Cent­ral Bank said yes­ter­day.The warn­ing, in the cent­ral bank’s latest Fin­an­cial Sta­bil­ity Review, fol­lows sim­ilar cau­tions from insti­tu­tions includ­ing the IMF and the Bank of Eng­land over high valu­ations of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence stocks. “Cur­rent mar­ket pri­cing does not appear to reflect per­sist­ently elev­ated vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies and uncer­tain­ties,” the ECB said.Since the tem­por­ary sell-off in April over US Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump’s trade tar­iffs, mar­kets had been driven by a “renewed risk-on sen­ti­ment” that had pushed “already high valu­ations even higher”, the ECB said in the review.It added that investors were either hop­ing that “tail risks will not mater­i­al­ise” or were being driven by “fears of miss­ing out on a con­tin­ued rally”.

▸ US eco­nomic data tops expect­a­tions and pushes global stocks higher▸ Amer­ican tech stocks return to form, with Nvidia rebound­ing after fall▸ UK shares close higher after Budget day as chan­cel­lor’s plans wel­comedGlobal stocks ral­lied yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing bet­ter than expec­ted US eco­nomic data. The tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index had climbed 1 per cent by early after­noon in New York, with Nvidia rebound­ing1.7 per cent after the pre­vi­ous day’s falls. The blue-chip S&P 500 was up 0.9 per cent.Dell rose 6.4 per cent after the tech com­pany raised its annual fore­casts, due to strong demand for its AI serv­ers.“The mar­ket is digest­ing the Google move,” said Man­ish Kabra, head of US equity strategy at Société Générale, refer­ring to the release of Google’s Gem­ini 3 model, which promp­ted Nvidia’s ini­tial sell-off. “If Google is one of the lead­ing AI con­tenders, it raises expect­a­tions on AI long-term cap­ab­il­it­ies.”

A Budget tax raid on salary sac­ri­fice schemes is set to raise £3bn-£4bn, hit­ting busi­ness and encour­aging employ­ers to cut pen­sion pay­ments to staff.The move by Rachel Reeves is expec­ted to be one of the biggest meas­ures in next week’s Budget, with people briefed on the plans fore­cast­ing that it will raise more than the £2bn pre­vi­ously floated.The plan would reduce the amount of money people can sac­ri­fice from their pay cheques to put in their pen­sion pots without pay­ing national insur­ance.It faces strong push­back from busi­nesses, which would face the brunt of the tax rise and have already seen costs soar as a res­ult of the chan­cel­lor’s decision to increase national insur­ance for employ­ers in her Budget last year.Last week, Reeves reversed course on plans to break Labour’s mani­festo vow by increas­ing income tax after weeks of pre­par­ing the ground for the move, pla­cing the focus on other meas­ures.

▸ US stocks rebound after tumul­tu­ous week on indic­a­tion of Fed rate cut▸ Nas­daq climbs after swinging between gains and losses as tech shares fal­ter▸ European bourses fall, dragged down by Stoxx tech­no­logy sub-indexUS stocks reboun­ded at the end of a week marked by erratic trad­ing, after a top Fed­eral Reserve offi­cial lif­ted Wall Street’s hopes for a Decem­ber rate cut.The tech-focused Nas­daq Com­pos­ite rose 1 per cent in choppy after­noon trad­ing in New York, with the broader S&P 500 1.2 per cent higher.The moves came after the Nas­daq dropped 2.2 per cent in the most tur­bu­lent trad­ing ses­sion since Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump’s “lib­er­a­tion day” tar­iff announce­ment sparked huge mar­ket gyr­a­tions in April.Wor­ries about elev­ated valu­ations for Big Tech groups, which have ral­lied this year, and dimin­ish­ing expect­a­tions that the Fed will cut rates next month have promp­ted sharp pull­backs in recent weeks.

A plan backed by Don­ald Trump to restrict US states from reg­u­lat­ing AI com­pan­ies has pro­voked a back­lash from prom­in­ent Repub­lic­ans and Maga sup­port­ers, and accus­a­tions that he has caved to Big Tech donors.The US pres­id­ent on Tues­day called for “one Fed­eral Stand­ard instead of a patch­work of 50 State Reg­u­lat­ory Regimes” to sup­port the sec­tor’s growth, des­pite vehe­ment oppos­i­tion from some Repub­lican sen­at­ors and gov­ernors.The White House is even con­sid­er­ing an exec­ut­ive order that would poten­tially with­hold fed­eral funds from states who attempt to pass AI laws, accord­ing to a per­son famil­iar with the mat­ter.Trump’s back­ing of a fed­eral frame­work — a pri­or­ity for Sil­icon Val­ley lob­by­ists who fear restric­tions on AI from some states — came two weeks after a group backed by ven­ture cap­ital firm Andreessen Horow­itz and an OpenAI co-founder was formed in Wash­ing­ton in part to fight state-led legis­la­tion.Build Amer­ican AI’s leader Nathan Leamer vis­ited the White House just hours before Trump announced his decision to back the move that had already ignited out­rage among some Repub­lic­ans.

▸ US tech stocks exper­i­ence tur­bu­lent trad­ing amid valu­ation con­cerns▸ Wor­ries per­sist des­pite optim­ism over Nvidia earn­ings as Vix fear gauge rises▸ European stocks close higher, led by Ger­many’s Dax indexUS tech stocks dropped yes­ter­day in tur­bu­lent trad­ing as optim­ism over Nvidia’s robust earn­ings was over­shad­owed by a fresh bout of fears over lofty valu­ations for arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence com­pan­ies.The Nas­daq Com­pos­ite was down about 1.2 per cent in after­noon trad­ing in New York, giv­ing up a gain of more than 2 per cent. The S&P 500 was down0.9 per cent.Shares in Nvidia — seen as a bell­wether for the boom in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence — had ini­tially ral­lied more than 5 per cent after the group pos­ted bet­ter than expec­ted quarterly res­ults late on Wed­nes­day, but slumped 1.1 per cent later in the ses­sion.The Vix index, Wall Street’s so-called fear gauge, soared from about 20 to 28 in the course of two hours, a sharp move that under­scored the abrupt bout of volat­il­ity that jol­ted US equit­ies mar­kets.

Domestic investors have fled the stock mar­ket at a record rate this year, miss­ing out on a storm­ing rally in which Lon­don has out­paced both US and European bourses.UK investors have pulled about £26bn from Lon­don-lis­ted equit­ies in 2025, accord­ing to EPFR data, the highest level on record for a cal­en­dar year as meas­ured by out­flows from funds invest­ing in the coun­try.Nev­er­the­less, the FTSE 100 is on course for its best year since its rebound from the global fin­an­cial crisis in 2009, driven in part by for­eign investors look­ing to diver­sify their expos­ure bey­ond the US and to rel­at­ively cheap valu­ations on the Lon­don mar­ket.“The UK equity mar­ket is the unex­pec­ted win­ner of 2025 but UK investors don’t seem to care,” said Emmanuel Cau, head of European equit­ies strategy at Barclays.UK investors pulled £3.4bn from Lon­don stocks via fund with­draw­als in Octo­ber alone, the biggest monthly out­flow of the year.Ana­lysts attrib­uted the moves in part to next week’s Budget, which is likely to involve tax rises and has promp­ted investors to sell out of the mar­ket and boost their cash reserves.

▸ US stocks edge higher in advance of high-stakes Nvidia earn­ings▸ Delay to jobs data sup­presses momentum for Amer­ican indices▸ European stocks close flat after shak­ing off early lossesUS stocks edged higher in choppy trad­ing yes­ter­day, in a ses­sion char­ac­ter­ised by anti­cip­a­tion ahead of a high-stakes Nvidia earn­ings along­side nerves about the state of the US employ­ment mar­ket.The Nas­daq Com­pos­ite rose as much as 1.7 per cent in early trad­ing yes­ter­day morn­ing, but fell back later in the day fol­low­ing the announce­ment that cru­cial US employ­ment data for Octo­ber would not be released as expec­ted.By early after­noon in New York, the Nas­daq Com­pos­ite and the S&P 500 were both 0.1 per cent higher.The Bur­eau of Labor Stat­ist­ics, respons­ible for the closely watched jobs data that traders use to gauge US interest rate expect­a­tions, said it will not pub­lish its Octo­ber employ­ment report this week as planned, due to the recent US fed­eral gov­ern­ment shut­down ham­per­ing data col­lec­tion.