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Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Equities myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. It was a dire January for Chinese stocks. After falling almost 10 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng stock index now trades around the same levels it did in 1997, when Tencent and Alibaba, two of

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected as “delusional” Hamas’s conditions for a deal to release the hostages it holds in Gaza, warning that accepting the terms would lead to “another massacre”. In a press

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Barratt has reached a £2.5bn deal to buy rival Redrow, creating the UK’s largest housebuilder, as developers weather the property market downturn.  The boards of both FTSE housebuilders have recommended that all-share combination, which they

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Donald Trump cannot use presidential immunity as a shield against criminal charges over alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election, a US federal appeals court has ruled. In a unanimous decision handed down on Tuesday,

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. China’s national chip champions expect to make next-generation smartphone processors as early as this year, despite US efforts to restrict their development of advanced technologies. The country’s biggest chipmaker SMIC has put together new semiconductor

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Private equity myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. US private equity firms are rushing to take advantage of lower borrowing costs by loading debt on to their portfolio companies and then using the cash to pay dividends to themselves and their investors. Corporate

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. As Iran’s best-known moderate Hassan Rouhani was being blocked from the powerful body with responsibility to appoint the country’s supreme leader, his hardline successor as president, Ebrahim Raisi, was handed a clear run at the

Iran used two of the UK’s biggest banks to covertly move money around the world as part of a vast sanctions-evasion scheme backed by Tehran’s intelligence services. Lloyds and Santander UK provided accounts to British front companies secretly owned by a sanctioned Iranian petrochemicals company based near Buckingham Palace, according to documents seen by the

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. US forces have carried out a second phase of air strikes in response to the deaths of three American troops in Jordan last weekend, this time hitting targets in Yemen where Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The writer is former chief of MI6 and UK Ambassador to the UN Iran was wrongfooted by Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israel. Tehran hadn’t been consulted and the operation risked pulling Iran into a

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The US carried out strikes in Iraq and Syria on Friday, hitting targets that included elements of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in retaliation for a drone attack killed three American troops based in Jordan.

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The US economy added 353,000 jobs in January, almost twice as many as expected, leading investors to rein in expectations of interest rate cuts. Economists had expected the country to have added 180,000 jobs last

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, has announced its first ever dividend and an additional $50bn in share buybacks as bumper fourth-quarter results sent its shares up by more than 12 per cent in

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the UK interest rates myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. The Bank of England said it required “more evidence” that inflation is falling before implementing interest rate cuts as it held borrowing costs at 5.25 per cent. At Thursday’s meeting of the Monetary Policy

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The US Federal Reserve held interest rates at a 23-year high on Wednesday, but gave little immediate indication of when it would begin cutting borrowing costs this year. The Federal Open Market Committee’s decision to

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the War in Ukraine myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Brussels has made a last-minute offer to Hungary’s prime minister in a bid to secure his support for the bloc’s €50bn financial aid to Ukraine, amid frenzied diplomatic efforts to reach a deal at

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Elon Musk’s $55bn pay package from Tesla has been voided by a Delaware judge, who ruled that the unprecedented remuneration was improperly approved by the electric-car maker’s board of directors and had short-changed the company’s

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The IMF has warned UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt against cutting taxes, arguing the country needs to curb public borrowing and prioritise spending in areas such as health, education and tackling climate change.  Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, IMF

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The US military failed to stop the enemy drone that killed three of its service members after mistaking it for an American drone that approached a base near Jordan’s border with Syria at the same

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Iran distanced itself on Monday from an attack that killed three US soldiers as pressure built domestically on President Joe Biden to respond against Tehran. A day after the US blamed “radical Iran-backed militant groups”