Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet said on Tuesday that their latest revenues and earnings had surged above the stock market’s already optimistic expectations, confirming that demand for their digital services and gadgets continued to soar as some countries began to emerge from the pandemic. Apple Apple’s profits almost doubled in its latest quarter to $21.7bn, as
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The value of Chinese shares on Wall Street has soared from just a few billion dollars to $2tn over the past two decades as investors turned a blind eye to the precarious legal structure underpinning many of the country’s biggest US listings. But a crackdown by Beijing on China’s $100bn tutoring industry over the past
The British government is exploring ways to remove China’s state-owned nuclear energy company from all future power projects in the UK, including the consortium planning to build the new £20bn Sizewell nuclear power station in Suffolk, according to people close to the discussions. The change in mood at the top of government also affects proposals
Roughly every other glass of orange juice drunk around the world comes from the orchards of São Paulo state, boasts Duarte Nogueira. “We have everything beginning with the letter ‘C’,” says the mayor of Ribeirão Preto, a city four hours inland from the state capital, before reeling off the Portuguese names of produce cultivated in
US stocks ended Friday at a new high, reversing steep losses at the start of the week, as fears about the Delta variant of coronavirus were soothed by strong corporate earnings and continued central bank support for financial markets. The S&P 500 climbed 1 per cent, lifting the index’s weekly gain to 2 per cent
Supply disruptions, a drought in China and rebounding electricity demand have fired up the market for thermal coal, making the world’s least liked commodity one of this year’s best-performing assets. Since the start of the year, the price of high energy Australia coal — the benchmark for the vast Asian market — has climbed 80
Netflix lost 430,000 subscribers in the US and Canada in the second quarter and issued disappointing forecasts for later in the year, rekindling investor doubts over how the streaming group will fare after the economic reopening. The California-based company predicted it would add 3.5m subscribers in the third quarter, disappointing investors who were looking for
European equities were heading for their worst session of the year as the growing threat of the Delta coronavirus variant triggered falls in global share markets and commodities, while investors sought havens in government bonds and gold. Europe’s region-wide Stoxx Europe 600 lost 2.7 per cent, the biggest drop since October, while London’s FTSE 100
Opec and its allies have reached an agreement to raise oil production at a time of soaring prices after compromising over how the output targets of some of its largest members are calculated. Members of the Opec+ group including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq and Kuwait will all be awarded higher production baselines —
With just over two months to go until polling day, the devastating floods that swept through western Germany this week have catapulted climate change to the heart of the German election campaign. Most of Germany’s political parties agreed that global warming was to blame for a catastrophe that left 103 people dead and visited destruction
The US is experiencing a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”, the head of the country’s top public health agency warned, as new coronavirus cases have jumped 70 per cent in the past week. More than 33,000 infections were reported across the US on Thursday, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said
Norway’s capital was quieter than usual on July 22 2011, a wet Friday during the summer holidays. At 3.25pm a bomb hidden inside a van exploded outside the prime minister’s office, shattering the nation’s peace and setting in motion an afternoon of scarcely believable terror. By the end of the day, 77 people had been
Pressure is building on the US Securities and Exchange Commission to finalise regulations to de-list Chinese companies that fail to comply with American auditing rules, after lawmakers discovered the agency might not begin enforcement until 2025 at the earliest. Legislation signed by Donald Trump in December gave US-listed Chinese groups three years to comply with
When Soho House announced its New York listing in June, chief executive Nick Jones received an email from the club’s fifth member. Greg Hunt, a screenwriting agent, wrote that he used to sit in the bar of the first Soho House in central London “wondering if the place will get more busy”. Twenty-six years and
A surge in the pace of price growth on both sides of the Atlantic has revived economists’ concerns about the risk of overheating, piling pressure on policymakers to consider a faster withdrawal of their unprecedented pandemic-era stimulus policies. Data published earlier this week showed that US consumer prices rose by 5.4 per cent in June
Jay Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, said the US central bank was ready to intervene if inflation spiralled out of control, but stressed that he expected price increases to ease later in the year. “Inflation has increased notably and will likely remain elevated in coming months before moderating,” Powell said in prepared remarks
As South Africa’s worst public violence in decades swept Johannesburg and its biggest township this week, Nhlanhla Lux was ready to defend the shopping centre he called Soweto’s “last elephant” with his life. Clad in camouflage and armed with a pistol, the 33-year-old community leader guarded the closed gates of Soweto’s Maponya mall with a
Ohio University has announced a series of scholarship and prize giveaways for vaccinated students, while the state prepares to revive its multi-million-dollar lottery scheme to boost vaccination coverage. Fully vaccinated students who sign up for the college’s “vaccination pathway” programme, which exempts them from having to take a weekly asymptomatic Covid-19 test, will be eligible
Europe’s most polluting businesses have accused the EU of jeopardising investment and innovation after Brussels unveiled ambitious plans to halve the bloc’s emissions by 2030 in an effort to curb global warming. Carmakers, airlines and heavy industry all hit out at the proposals, which include a de facto ban on new diesel and petrol cars
The pace of China’s economic recovery rose modestly in the second quarter after signs of sluggishness in the world’s second-biggest economy stoked expectations of greater policy support. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, China’s gross domestic product expanded 1.3 per cent in the three months to the end of June, up from a 0.4 per cent expansion