Customers have been paying too much for their electricity for seven years because regulator Ofgem set the bar too low for networks, the spending watchdog has said. The National Audit Office (NAO) said that although customer service has been good, Ofgem made targets too easy for network companies and over-estimated the returns needed to bring […]
Royal Dutch Shell has reported a profit of $16.5bn (£12.7bn) in 2019, down 23% from the previous year. The oil giant also said its fourth quarter profit had fallen by nearly half to $2.9bn (£2.2bn), its lowest in more than three years. Rising tensions in the Middle East and the first stage of a trade […]
The European Parliament on Wednesday gave its final approval to Britain’s divorce deal from the bloc, paving the way for Brexit to take place on Friday. The chamber broke into singing Auld Lang Syne, a traditional Scottish song to bid farewell, after voting 621 for versus 49 against the Brexit deal, with 13 abstentions. Boris […]
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global equity markets closed little changed on Wednesday as strong results from Apple and others provided a lift, but concerns about the coronavirus outbreak in China kept enthusiasm in check and a safe-haven bid in gold and the dollar alive. The yield on benchmark U.S. Treasuries and German bunds fell as […]
(Reuters) – The S&P 500 rose over 1% on Tuesday as a surge in Apple and other technology stocks helped the benchmark index recover from its worst selloff in about four months that was sparked by concerns over the coronavirus outbreak. Markets across the world stabilized as the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) […]
(Reuters) – Airbus faces a $4 billion fine and sharply lower 2019 profits after unveiling a preliminary deal with French, British and U.S. authorities following a crippling three-year probe into allegations of bribery and corruption over jetliner sales. The deal, among the biggest in a bribery case, ends an almost four-year crisis that led to […]
(Reuters) – Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) agreed to sell its newspaper business to Lee Enterprises Inc (LEE.N) for $140 million in cash, abandoning an industry the billionaire investor had long defended even as its financial prospects deteriorated. The transaction includes 31 daily newspapers and 49 weeklies including the daily Omaha World-Herald in Berkshire’s […]
NEW YORK – A dramatic rally in Treasuries this week led some key parts of the U.S. yield curve to reinvert, a signal that has traditionally been bearish for the U.S. economy. The curve between two-year and five-year notes inverted on Monday for the first time since December, and the three-month, 10-year curve briefly turned […]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve will end its latest policy meeting on Wednesday with interest rates likely on hold, adjustments to its balance sheet under discussion, and China’s widening coronavirus outbreak posing an unexpected risk to the global economy. A growing list of countries and companies are curbing travel to and from China, […]
In the run up to the EU referendum in May 2016, a pound could buy you €1.32. By October, in the aftermath of the narrow win by vote leave, that had fallen for €1.11. Now, three and a half years later, the people behind the victorious vote leave campaign are in Government and are about […]