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▸ Ban on Chinese com­pan­ies buy­ing Nvidia AI chips pushes Wall Street lower▸ Euro slips against dol­lar but remains close to highest levels in 4 years▸ FTSE 100 stocks, ster­ling and gilts edge upwards after UK infla­tion dataUS tech­no­logy stocks took Wall Street lower yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a ban on Chinese com­pan­ies buy­ing Nvidia's AI chips.The Fin­an­cial Times repor­ted that China's inter­net reg­u­lator had banned the coun­try's biggest tech­no­logy com­pan­ies from buy­ing arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence chips from US semi­con­ductor giant Nvidia.Nvidia shares were down 3 per cent by early after­noon in New York, with the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index 0.5 per cent lower.The blue-chip S&P 500 index dipped 0.1 per cent ahead of a highly anti­cip­ated US Fed­eral Reserve meet­ing tak­ing place later in the trad­ing ses­sion, although stocks remained around record highs.

US groups includ­ing Microsoft, Nvidia, Google and OpenAI have pledged to invest bil­lions of pounds in the UK, as Sir Keir Starmer hailed a tech alli­ance with Don­ald Trump before he landed in the UK for his state visit last night.The largest com­mit­ment is from Microsoft, which plans to invest $30bn in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence in the four years to 2028, about half of which will go towards cloud and AI infra­struc­ture in Bri­tain. That includes back­ing con­struc­tion of the UK’s largest super­com­puter with 23,000 AI chips, agree­ing a long-term leas­ing con­tract with Lon­don-based data centre com­pany Nscale.Starmer said yes­ter­day that the tech deal with Trump marked a “decis­ive step towards the UK becom­ing a world leader in AI”.UK offi­cials have likened increased Lon­don-Wash­ing­ton co-oper­a­tion in areas such as AI, quantum com­put­ing and nuc­lear energy as the start of a new “spe­cial rela­tion­ship”, akin to tra­di­tional ties in defence and secur­ity.

▸ Euro climbs to four-year high against dol­lar ahead of Fed rate decision▸ Treas­ury yields fall des­pite stronger than expec­ted US retail sales data▸ Wall Street’s blue-chips edge lower but European stocks hit by big­ger lossesThe euro reached a four-year high against the dol­lar yes­ter­day ahead of a highly anti­cip­ated US Fed­eral Reserve interest rate decision due today.The single cur­rency climbed 0.8 per cent against the dol­lar to $1.186, its highest level since Septem­ber 2021. The move takes the euro's gain for the year so far to more than 14 per cent.The US Dol­lar index, which meas­ures the strength of the cur­rency against a bas­ket of six rivals includ­ing the euro and the pound, slipped 0.6 per cent.The dol­lar is hov­er­ing around a threeyear low as investors wait to hear from the Fed's poli­cy­makers.“The dol­lar has struggled over recent weeks as US interest rate expect­a­tions have fallen sig­ni­fic­antly rel­at­ive to those else­where,” said Jonas Gol­ter­mann, deputy chief mar­kets eco­nom­ist at Cap­ital Eco­nom­ics.He added that “soft employ­ment growth data and a clear change in tune from Fed chair [Jay] Pow­ell” had been the main drivers of rate cut expect­a­tions.Mar­kets are fully pri­cing in a quarter­point interest rate cut from the Fed with a small num­ber of traders bet­ting on a bumper half-per­cent­age point cut.Lower rates tend to weaken cur­ren­cies by redu­cing the return for investors on hold­ing assets in that cur­rency.

Don­ald Trump has called for Amer­ican com­pan­ies to stop report­ing quarterly res­ults, as his Wall Street watch­dog moved to scrap its aggress­ive enforce­ment agenda in a sign of a more busi­ness-friendly stance.The US pres­id­ent said on his Truth Social net­work that com­pan­ies should shift to pub­lish­ing fig­ures twice a year, con­trast­ing stand­ard prac­tice in the US with what he depic­ted as China’s more long-term approach.Most pub­licly lis­ted US com­pan­ies are required to file quarterly and annual fin­an­cial fil­ings with the Secur­it­ies and Exchange Com­mis­sion.“Sub­ject to SEC Approval, Com­pan­ies and Cor­por­a­tions should no longer be forced to ‘Report’ on a quarterly basis,” Trump said. “This will save money, and allow man­agers to focus on prop­erly run­ning their com­pan­ies.”He added: “Did you ever hear the state­ment that, ‘China has a 50 to 100 year view on man­age­ment of a com­pany, whereas we run our com­pan­ies on a quarterly basis???’ Not good!!!”Trump’s remarks came soon after Paul Atkins, his appointee as SEC chair, told the Fin­an­cial Times in an inter­view that he would give busi­nesses notice of any tech­nical viol­a­tions before reg­u­lat­ors “bash down their door”.

▸ Tech sec­tor boosts stock mar­kets and Google par­ent hits $3tn valu­ation▸ Weaker US eco­nomic data lift hopes for interest rate cut from the Fed▸ Gold price at fresh record high on hopes of rate fall and weaker dol­larGlobal stock mar­kets star­ted the week on a bright note as tech head­lines buoyed investors hop­ing for the first US interest rate cut of the year.A pos­it­ive tone in equity mar­kets was sup­por­ted by a fil­ing show­ing Elon Musk had bought $1bn worth of Tesla shares, while Google's par­ent Alpha­bet broke through the $3tn mar­ket value in morn­ing trad­ing on Wall Street. The blue-chip S&P 500 index of US stocks was up 0.5 per cent by early after­noon in New York.The tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite rose 0.9 per cent. It has gained more than 15 per cent this year as optim­ism over the growth of AI, and solid quarterly profits announce­ments for Big Tech groups, over­came investor con­cerns on tar­iffs and the health of the US eco­nomy.

The US Fed­eral Reserve is this week expec­ted to make its first interest rate cut this year, as it faces fierce pres­sure from Don­ald Trump and a split over whether the weak­en­ing jobs mar­ket can counter the infla­tion­ary risk posed by the US pres­id­ent’s tar­iffs.Investors widely expect rate-set­ters to lower bor­row­ing costs by a quarter of a per­cent­age point at Wed­nes­day’s vote. After cut­ting rates by 100 basis points last year, the Fed has kept them at a 4.25-4.5 per cent range since Decem­ber.But poli­cy­makers are divided over how quick and deep the cuts should be, and Fed chair Jay Pow­ell has faced cri­ti­cism from Trump, who has called on him to resign and labelled him a “numb­skull” over his reluct­ance to cut rates.The US pres­id­ent rat­cheted up his attacks last month when he tried to fire Fed gov­ernor Lisa Cook over alleg­a­tions of mort­gage fraud.Cook, who has denied the charges, is suing Trump, claim­ing he does not have the right to dis­miss her.

The US and UK are rush­ing to final­ise deals on nuc­lear react­ors, AI data centres and whisky ahead of a state visit by Don­ald Trump over­shad­owed by the fir­ing of Lord Peter Man­del­son.OpenAI is set to announce a Brit­ish arm to its $500bn Star­gate data centre project, as part of a series of tech and trade agree­ments to coin­cide with the US pres­id­ent’s visit next week.The tech part­ner­ship was described by Man­del­son, sacked this week as UK ambas­sador to Wash­ing­ton over his ties to Jef­frey Epstein, as his “per­sonal pride and joy”. Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to fire Man­del­son risks anger­ing Trump, who has been try­ing to dis­miss his own con­nec­tions to the late pae­do­phile.Starmer has been rocked by the affair, with Labour MPs ques­tion­ing his future. The prime min­is­ter’s allies said the state visit came at a pivotal moment as he tries to regain the ini­ti­at­ive.For his part, Starmer hopes to present Trump’s three-day trip as an advert­ise­ment for Bri­tain and a sign that his growth strategy is bear­ing fruit.

▸ Global gov­ern­ment bonds lose ground after four-week rally▸ Gold prices move higher to near a recent record peak▸ Dol­lar bucks two days of selling to register gains on index against rivalsGlobal bond mar­kets lost some ground yes­ter­day after a rally driven by grow­ing expect­a­tions of US interest rate cuts.A fall in price for 10-year Treas­ury bonds — the bench­mark for global asset prices — pushed its yield up 6 basis points to 4.07 per cent as traders sold the debt.That is still down from a peak just below 4.50 per cent in July after a four­week rally for US gov­ern­ment bonds.Yields on 10-year UK gilts rose 5bp to 4.67 per cent while those on Ger­many's bench­mark Bunds were up 6bp to 2.71 per cent.Pooja Kumra, a rates strategist at TD Secur­it­ies, said the moves reflec­ted some “profit-tak­ing” among bond investors ahead of next week's meet­ing of the US Fed­eral Reserve when the cent­ral bank is widely expec­ted to make a quarter-point cut to its bench­mark policy rate.

Con­ser­vat­ive act­iv­ist Charlie Kirk hands out hats dur­ing an event at Utah Val­ley Uni­versity in Orem, Utah on Wed­nes­day, before he was killed in a shoot­ing that has rocked a divided Amer­ica.Don­ald Trump has con­demned the attack as a “hein­ous assas­sin­a­tion” as he vowed to address “rad­ical left polit­ical viol­ence”. At a 9/11 memorial cere­mony yes­ter­day, he said he would posthum­ously award the pres­id­en­tial medal of free­dom to the rightwing influ­en­cer.US author­it­ies released images of a “per­son of interest” in the shoot­ing, who they described as “col­lege age”, after recov­er­ing a rifle and ammuni­tion. The FBI has asked for the pub­lic’s help in identi­fy­ing the indi­vidual and offered a $100,000 reward for any inform­a­tion.

▸ Trader con­fid­ence over Fed rate cut pushes global stocks to all-time highs▸ Treas­ur­ies and UK gilts prices rise while dol­lar slips against major rivals▸ European equit­ies indices advance, also buoyed by US infla­tion dataGlobal stocks rose to record highs yes­ter­day after Amer­ican infla­tion data gave traders con­fid­ence that the US Fed­eral Reserve will cut interest rates next week.Wall Street's blue-chip S&P 500 index gained 0.8 per cent by early after­noon in New York and the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite climbed 0.6 per cent.Both indices were trad­ing at their latest record highs, as was the MSCI All-Coun­try World index, which tracks large and mid­cap stocks across almost 50 developed and emer­ging mar­kets.Mar­kets were upbeat after US con­sumer price index infla­tion data was released in line with ana­lysts' expect­a­tions, show­ing the rate of infla­tion rising to an annual 2.9 per cent in August.Des­pite an uptick in the rate from July, investors saw the fig­ure as clear­ing the way for the Fed to cut rates.

Larry Ellison, right, was pro­pelled past fel­low tech bil­lion­aire Elon Musk, left, yes­ter­day to take the crown as the world’s richest per­son.The value of the Oracle co-founder’s stake in the soft­ware group was worth $387bn alone after its shares rose more than 40 per cent fol­low­ing bumper res­ults. Musk’s worth is about $384bn, Bloomberg’s Bil­lion­aire Index says.Oracle’s rapid growth caught traders by sur­prise after it said rev­enue from its infra­struc­ture unit would jump from $18bn this year to $144bn in five years — nearly 60 per cent higher than the $91bn that Wall Street had expec­ted.Before yes­ter­day’s surge to $334, Oracle’s share price had already gained more than 40 per cent this year. Its mar­ket value rose from $466bn at the start of the year to $943bn yes­ter­day.

▸ Oracle’s bumper earn­ings push Wall Street bench­marks to all-time peaks▸ Investors snap up US Treas­ur­ies but dol­lar slips against bas­ket of rivals▸ French stocks and gov­ern­ment bond prices rise slightly after PM appoin­tedWall Street rose to fresh record highs yes­ter­day after soft­ware com­pany Oracle announced bumper earn­ings driven by demand for arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence.The blue-chip S&P 500 index rose as much as 0.7 per cent by mid­day in New York while the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index climbed 0.5 per cent, tak­ing both indices to record peaks.Oracle's share price was 42 per cent higher after the cloud com­put­ing group's book­ings punched through investor expect­a­tions in earn­ings announced after the mar­ket closed on Tues­day.Chris Turner, global head of mar­kets research at ING, said the res­ults “sup­por­ted the hype in AI invest­ment”.Wall Street stocks were also buoyed by soft infla­tion data, which added to traders' con­vic­tions that the US Fed­eral Reserve will cut interest rates next week.

The US added 911,000 fewer jobs than pre­vi­ously thought in the year to March, accord­ing to new offi­cial stat­ist­ics that sug­gest the labour mar­ket in the world’s biggest eco­nomy began cool­ing sharply in 2024.The fig­ures from the Bur­eau of Labor Stat­ist­ics show national employ­ment in the 12 months to March 2025 was far below levels in its closely watched monthly reports and indic­ate jobs growth began to lose steam in the lat­ter part of Joe Biden’s pres­id­ency.Yes­ter­day’s revi­sion is the largest on record and roughly halves the 1.8mn job growth fig­ure the agency had pre­vi­ously estim­ated for the year.The report will be a boost to Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump, who has argued that his aggress­ive tar­iff and immig­ra­tion policies were not to blame for recent signs of weak­ness in the labour mar­ket.“These revi­sions sug­gest that jobs momentum is being lost from an even weaker pos­i­tion than ori­gin­ally thought,” said James Knight­ley, chief inter­na­tional eco­nom­ist at ING.Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion also used the data — which will fur­ther raise pres­sure on the US Fed­eral Reserve to cut interest rates next week — to renew its attacks on Biden. 

▸ Wall Street stocks give up early gains after US jobs data revised lower▸ Dol­lar moves higher but US gov­ern­ment bonds sold by investors▸ Paris stocks make mod­est gains as gov­ern­ment col­lapse priced inWall Street stocks gave up early gains yes­ter­day after revised data sug­ges­ted that the world’s biggest eco­nomy was in a weaker pos­i­tion than investors had thought.After rising at the open, the blue-chip S&P 500 index was 0.1 per cent lower by early after­noon in New York, as was the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite index.Revised fig­ures from the Bur­eau of Labor Stat­ist­ics showed that the US added 911,000 fewer jobs than pre­vi­ously stated in the year to March.“These revi­sions sug­gest that jobs momentum is being lost from an even weaker pos­i­tion than ori­gin­ally thought,” said James Knight­ley, chief inter­na­tional eco­nom­ist at ING.He added that “the poor num­bers seen in 2025 are prob­ably over­stat­ing the health of the employ­ment mar­ket”.

The US has informed coun­tries in Europe that it is step­ping back from joint efforts to com­bat dis­in­form­a­tion from coun­tries such as Rus­sia, China and Iran, accord­ing to three European offi­cials famil­iar with the mat­ter.European coun­tries received a notice from the state depart­ment last week that the US was ter­min­at­ing memor­anda of under­stand­ing signed under Joe Biden’s admin­is­tra­tion, which sought to forge a uni­fied approach to identi­fy­ing and expos­ing mali­cious inform­a­tion spread by for­eign gov­ern­ments seek­ing to sow chaos.The move comes as Don­ald Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion has dis­mantled agen­cies across gov­ern­ment that sought to pro­tect the integ­rity of US elec­tions and to com­bat for­eign malign influ­ence at home and abroad.The memor­anda were part of an ini­ti­at­ive led by the Global Engage­ment Cen­ter, a state depart­ment agency that tackled dis­in­form­a­tion spread over­seas by US adversar­ies and ter­ror groups.James Rubin, who served as head of the centre until Decem­ber, described the decision as a “uni­lat­eral act of dis­arm­a­ment” in the inform­a­tion war with Rus­sia and China. “Inform­a­tion war­fare is a real­ity of our time and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is only going to mul­tiply the risks from that,” Rubin said.

▸ US stocks climb as investors turn focus to pos­sible Fed rate cut▸ Europe-wide Stoxx 600 index and Asian bourses gain ground▸ Green­back slides against bas­ket of other major cur­ren­ciesUS stocks rose yes­ter­day as investor focus shif­ted to the pos­sib­il­ity of Fed­eral Reserve interest rate cuts, fol­low­ing dis­ap­point­ing eco­nomic data at the end of last week.Weaker than expec­ted non-farm payrolls data fuelled investor fears about a sus­tained growth slow­down in the US, send­ing stocks lower and bond prices higher on Fri­day.But equity indices regained ground yes­ter­day, with the blue-chip S&P 500 index up 0.3 per cent by early after­noon in New York and the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite adding 0.7 per cent.Fol­low­ing Fri­day's data, traders moved to fully price in a quarter-point interest rate cut by the Fed this month and some even star­ted spec­u­lat­ing on a bumper half-per­cent­age point cut.“We think the August labour mar­ket data has opened the door to a ‘catch-up' 50 basis point rate cut at the Septem­ber FOMC meet­ing,” said John Davis, US rates strategist at Stand­ard Chartered.

Tesla’s board has pro­posed a new pay pack­age for chief exec­ut­ive Elon Musk worth $1tn over the next dec­ade if he is hits a series of for­mid­able tar­gets.Musk will receive no salary or bonus under the plan unveiled yes­ter­day, but would col­lect shares in instal­ments unlocked by increases in Tesla’s mar­ket value, along­side mile­stones includ­ing a huge increase in earn­ings and selling mil­lions of cars, robo­taxis and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence-powered robots.“Retain­ing and incentiv­ising Elon is fun­da­mental to Tesla . . . becom­ing the most valu­able com­pany in his­tory,” chair Robyn Den­holm wrote to investors, adding it would “drive peak per­form­ance from our vis­ion­ary leader”.The board stressed that Musk’s incent­ives were aligned with investors’ interests and he will receive noth­ing if Tesla’s growth stalls. But the scale of the pack­age is likely to revive a fierce debate over the earn­ings of the world’s richest man.

▸ Wall Street slides on fears of a sus­tained eco­nomic slow­down▸ Dol­lar retreats while Treas­ur­ies rally as investors bet on faster US rate cuts▸ Paris stocks weaker ahead of cru­cial French gov­ern­ment con­fid­ence voteWall Street stocks slid yes­ter­day after US employ­ment data indic­ated that the world's biggest eco­nomy was slow­ing down.The closely watched fig­ure for non­farm payrolls showed that just 22,000 jobs were added in August, far fewer than the 75,000 that ana­lysts had expec­ted.The blue-chip S&P 500 index ini­tially jumped to a record high as traders piled on bets of faster interest rate cuts.But the US bench­mark soon reversed course on fears of a sus­tained eco­nomic slow­down and was 0.5 per cent lower on the day by early after­noon in New York.The tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite was down 0.2 per cent after also briefly hit­ting a new record.The weak data revived investors' fears of stag­fla­tion emer­ging in the US.

Busi­nesses cut jobs at the quick­est rate for four years this sum­mer and repor­ted the worst employ­ment out­look since the pan­demic, point­ing to the impact of chan­cel­lor Rachel Reeves’ decision to raise payroll taxes.Com­pan­ies reduced employ­ment by an annual rate of 0.5 per cent in the three months to August, the worst fig­ure since 2021, accord­ing to a Bank of Eng­land sur­vey of chief fin­an­cial officers pub­lished yes­ter­day. Last month, busi­nesses also told the cent­ral bank they expec­ted to cut employ­ment by 0.5 per cent in the year ahead. This is the worst read­ing since Octo­ber 2020, when the eco­nomy was start­ing to recover from Covid-19 and some restric­tions were still in place.Busi­nesses have blamed tax increases in Reeves’ first Budget last Octo­ber for the pull­back in hir­ing, which has been repor­ted in a string of other sur­veys.A £25bn increase in national insur­ance con­tri­bu­tions, announced in the fiscal event, took effect in April along with a rise in the min­imum wage.

▸ 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.