US monetary policy is on course to sharply diverge from Europe, with the Federal Reserve set to cut its benchmark interest rate only half as much by the end of next year as the European Central Bank. With Trump preparing to cut taxes and increase tariffs, US inflation is forecast to stay above 2 per cent throughout the whole of 2025.
Wall Street’s biggest institutions are betting on UK stocks, with London viewed as better placed than other European markets to weather the fallout from Trump’s sweeping trade plans.
US retailers are extending one-day Black Friday discount offers into a sales event lasting weeks in a bid to tempt US consumers to keep spending, as data suggests that their spree that has driven economic growth is beginning to falter.
The small-cap Russell 2000 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average are up more than 10% and 7.1% respectively in November, on pace for their biggest monthly percentage gains this year. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite have added more than 5%.
Huawei is poised to launch its first flagship phone that can run its own apps on a homegrown operating system, in the latest sign of how technology is dividing into competing US and Chinese ecosystems. The smartphone will feature HarmonyOS Next, which the Chinese company hopes to establish as a major rival to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.
$1.9 trillion. This year’s projected federal budget deficit in the US, which is likely to reach more than 6% of economic output, a threshold crossed previously only during World War II, the 2008-09 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Italy’s UniCredit has launched a €10.1bn takeover bid for rival Banco BPM, as chief executive Andrea Orcel steps up his efforts to consolidate Europe’s fragmented banking industry. The offer opens a new front for Orcel’s ambition to create a European banking champion.
Donald Trump has said he will impose tariffs of 25 per cent on all imports from Canada and Mexico on his first day in office, as well as an extra 10 per cent on goods from China, blaming the three countries for illegal immigration and drug trafficking into the US. The announcement reverberated around international markets Tuesday morning. The US dollar rose, while the Mexican peso and the Canadian dollar were both down.
Buffett has now given away shares valued at approximately $192.8 billion in today’s market. Twenty years ago, he and his first wife owned 508,998 Class A shares. After his latest round of charitable donations, Buffett retains 206,363 shares. Had he kept all his shares, his current fortune would be around $370 billion—surpassing Elon Musk as the world’s richest individual by nearly $50 billion.
Elon Musk on Warren Buffett:
“The stock market is wild, sort of rollercoaster. I think Warren Buffett has a lot of good sayings. One is, ‘Having a publicly traded company is like having someone stand outside your house and yell house prices all day,’ and it’s still the same house.”
On Nov. 30, 1920, Charles Ponzi pleaded guilty to fraud charges and was sentenced to five years in prison. He had promised investors a 50% return in 45 days, but simply used new clients’ money to repay earlier ones.