Nvidia to invest $5bn in Intel after Trump administration’s 10% stake

Nvidia, the world’s leading chipmaker, has announced plans to invest $5bn in Intel and collaborate with the struggling semiconductor company on products.A month after the Trump administration confirmed it had taken a 10% stake in Intel – the latest extraordinary intervention by the White House in corporate America – Nvidia said it would team up with the firm to work on custom datacenters that form the backbone of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, as well as personal computer products.Intel shares jumped nearly 23% after markets closed, making it the largest one-day percentage gain for the company since 1987. Nvidia rose more than 3%, bolstering its $4tn market value.Nvidia said it would spend $5bn to buy Intel common stock at $23

What is quantitative tightening and how has it affected UK finances?

The Bank of England has announced that it will scale back its multibillion-pound “quantitative tightening” programme.The process is significant for the UK economy and the public finances. But how will it work?The process is the opposite of quantitative easing – the tool used by the world’s most powerful central banks during the 2008 financial crisis.Often referred to as “printing money”, QE involved central banks buying bonds from financial institutions, such as commercial banks and pension funds. This helped to push down yields – in effect the interest rate – on bonds, lowering borrowing costs and supporting economic activity

Bank’s interest rate vote and bond plans are little help to Reeves before budget

“Gradual” and “predictable” are the watchwords at the Bank of England. But for Rachel Reeves, preparing for a tough autumn budget, a more activist approach from Threadneedle Street could have helped.The central bank had two pieces of bad news for the chancellor on Thursday: borrowing costs would be left unchanged at the current elevated level, while the Bank would proceed with a plan to sell billions of pounds in UK government bonds.Both decisions had been widely expected in financial markets. But an alternative outcome was not outside the realms of possibility and could have helped bail out the Treasury a little before the autumn budget

Bank of England governor says UK ‘not out of the woods’ on inflation, after leaving interest rates on hold – as it happened

The Bank governor, Andrew Bailey, has warned that the UK is ‘not out of the woods’ in the cost of living squeeze.Announcing today’s decision to leave interest rates on hold, Bailey said:“Although we expect inflation to return to our 2% target, we’re not out of the woods yet so any future cuts will need to be made gradually and carefully.”Food prices have been a key factor pushing up inflation, and there are forecasts that food inflation will rise towards 5.5% by the end of the year.Time to wrap up…The Bank of England has left interest rates on hold at 4% and will slow the pace of its “quantitative tightening” programme in the year ahead to avoid distorting jittery government bond markets

Novo Nordisk shares climb after positive results for anti-obesity pill

The value of the drugmaker Novo Nordisk jumped by about £9bn on Thursday after research showed that taking its new anti-obesity pill can result in almost as much weight loss as its Wegovy jab.The Danish company is racing against its US rival Eli Lilly to get a tablet treatment to market. Shares in Novo Nordisk climbed by more than 6% on hopes that it can claw back market share lost to Eli Lilly and cheaper generic versions of GLP-1 drugs.The shares had fallen by nearly 60% in the past year as sales slowed and Novo issued several profit warnings, prompting its new chief executive, Mike Doustdar, to plan 9,000 layoffs.Novo said on Thursday that a once-daily pill version of Wegovy helped people achieve “significant weight” loss in a clinical trial, with close to one in three participants losing 20% or more weight

UK faces years of anaemic growth amid tax and regulation burden, says Next

Bosses at the clothing and homeware chain Next are forecasting years of “anaemic” growth across the UK, with the retailer claiming that regulation, government spending and higher taxes will hurt jobs and productivity.The FTSE 100 company, which is headed by the Conservative peer Simon Wolfson, said that while it did not believe the economy was heading towards a “cliff edge”, the weakening outlook gave the company “another reason to be cautious”.“The medium- to long-term outlook for the UK economy does not look favourable,” the retailer said as it released its results for the six months to July.The company, which sells its own-brand clothes and homeware alongside other brands’ products, and controls the UK distribution of the US brands Gap and Victoria’s Secret, said the rising tax burden and government spending commitments, among other factors, were putting pressure on businesses and restricting economic growth.“At best we expect anaemic growth, with progress constrained by four factors: declining job opportunities, new regulation that erodes competitiveness, government spending commitments that are beyond its means, and a rising tax burden that undermines national productivity,” it said