Aurelia Butler

RICS’ monthly house price gauge jumped to +25 in November from +16 in October, its highest level since September 2022. A Reuters poll of economists had pointed to a reading of +19.Mortgage lenders Nationwide and Halifax also reported a sharp pickup in house prices during November and Bank of England data showed lenders in October approved the most mortgages for house purchases since August 2022.However, RICS said sales might slow next year as consumer and business confidence appeared to be weakening and markets had scaled back their expectations of BoE rate cuts, pushing up mortgage costs.”Although the latest survey results continue to signal a steady improvement in buyer demand across the residential market, the broader macro environment is likely to pose additional headwinds moving forward,” RICS senior economist Tarrant Parsons (NYSE:PSN) said.”The recent rise in mortgage interest rates may curtail the recovery in market activity before long, and this is reflected in the slightly less optimistic sales expectations data coming through this month,” he added.Online property portal Rightmove (OTC:RTMVY) said on Thursday it was more positive about the outlook for 2025. It expected asking prices to rise by 4% in 2025, its highest prediction since 2021.”We expect a busier year in 2025, with around 1.15 million transactions completed,” said Rightmove property expert Tim Bannister. Increases to stamp duty land tax in April were likely to boost activity in the first half of the year, while further reductions in Bank of England interest rates are also likely to support the market, he said.The BoE cut interest rates in November for only the second time since 2020 and said future reductions are likely to be gradual as it predicts the new government’s first budget will lead to slightly faster inflation and economic growth next year. More

BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil’s central bank raised interest rates by a greater-than-expected 100 basis points on Wednesday and pointed to matching hikes for the next two meetings, signaling a shift to a new government-named governor will not weaken its determination to battle inflation. If the proposed roadmap is followed, the benchmark borrowing rate could soar to 14.25% as early as March – more than an eight-year high – reflecting policymakers’ determination to curb rising inflation expectations amid robust economic activity, a tight labor market and a weaker currency.The bank’s rate-setting committee, known as Copom, unanimously increased the benchmark Selic rate to 12.25%, noting a recent government-announced package of budget measures had impacted Brazil’s real currency, asset prices and inflation expectations.The highly-anticipated spending cut package from President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s administration fell short of expectations, straining confidence in the government’s ability to manage the rising public debt​.”The committee judges that these impacts contribute to more adverse inflation dynamics,” said policymakers in the decision statement, the last under governor Roberto Campos Neto’s leadership at the central bank.Campos Neto, who will be succeeded in January by the current monetary policy director, Gabriel Galipolo, had been emphasizing that a positive fiscal shock, such as less government spending, would have a significant impact on markets if it changed the outlook for Brazil’s public debt, as interest rate futures have surged amid growing fiscal concerns.”Our interpretation is that the statement was quite harsh, with explicit guidance for at least another 200 basis points,” said Alexandre Espirito Santo, chief economist at Way Investimentos.While he deemed the committee’s actions appropriate, he noted that managing expectations is an extremely challenging task at the moment, with focus shifting to the central bank’s incoming leadership in January.Jose Francisco Goncalves, chief economist at Fator, said “the Copom’s choice for a shock approach reintroduces the additional risk of fiscal dominance, as the only guarantee for now is the increase in interest expenses.”In so-called fiscal dominance, central bank rate hikes increase government debt servicing costs and worsen fiscal conditions, deteriorating market expectations and ultimately driving inflation higher.Policymakers began tightening in September, stressing that the overall magnitude of the cycle would be determined by the firm commitment to reaching the 3% inflation target — a message that remained unchanged on Wednesday.Only four of 40 economists surveyed in a recent Reuters poll had anticipated a hike this size, while the majority had projected a smaller 75 basis-point increase. But bets embedded on the yield curve already pointed to a steeper full percentage-point hike, which had not been seen since May 2022, following a sharp weakening of the currency after the fiscal package was unveiled.The Brazilian real has depreciated nearly 20% year-to-date against the U.S. dollar, among the worst emerging market performances. Minutes before the rate decision, policymakers announced plans to hold a U.S. dollar auction with a repurchase agreement of up to $4 billion on Thursday. The view that the central bank should adopt a more hawkish stance gained momentum after the bank’s weekly survey of economists showed a sharp deterioration in expectations for consumer prices extending into 2027.This occurred despite expectations for a more aggressive tightening cycle, reflecting a loss of confidence in interest rates effectively curbing inflation. The central bank itself revised on Wednesday its inflation estimates, now projecting inflation of 4.9% this year, up from 4.6% previously, and 4.5% in 2025, up from 3.9%. For the second quarter of 2026, which is part of a 18-month horizon affected by current monetary policy decisions, it forecast annual inflation of 4.0%, up from the prior 3.6%. More

Doctors operated on the leftist leader for about two hours on Tuesday to drain bleeding between his brain and meningeal membrane, which doctors said was linked to a late October fall at his home. Thursday’s endovascular procedure will help minimize the risk of future bleeding, his personal doctor, Roberto Kalil Filho, told reporters on Wednesday.Doctors will hold a press conference following Thursday’s surgery, the hospital said.Kalil said the procedure – a middle meningeal artery embolization – is “relatively simple” and “low risk,” adding it should take approximately one hour.The follow-up procedure had been discussed by doctors since Tuesday’s surgery, and does not represent a worsening of Lula’s health situation, according to Kalil. “We waited to see that the president was recovering well before deciding to go ahead with the procedure,” he said.Sao Paulo’s Sirio-Libanes Hospital said in its update note that the 79-year-old president was in intensive care but had no complications during the day, when he walked, received visits from family members and did physiotherapy. The emergency surgery added to health concerns about the elderly president, an icon of the Latin American left who is halfway through his latest term after previously serving in the role from 2003 to 2011.Earlier in the day, a previous medical note said Lula was lucid and talking following the overnight hospital stay and had experienced no post-surgery complications. More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. House of Representatives passed a defense policy bill on Wednesday, governing a record $895 billion in annual military spending, despite inclusion of a controversial policy targeting gender-affirming care for transgender children.The tally was 281-140 in favor of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, sending it for consideration by the Democratic-led U.S. Senate.In addition to the typical NDAA provisions on purchases of military equipment and boosting competitiveness with archrivals like China and Russia, this year’s 1,800-page bill focuses on improving the quality of life for the U.S. military.It authorizes a 14.5% pay increase for the lowest-ranking troops, and 4.5% for the rest of the force, which is higher than usual. It also authorizes the construction of military housing, schools and childcare centers.The bill bans the military health program, TRICARE, from covering gender-affirming care for the transgender children of service members if it could risk sterilization.Including the provision in the bill, which sets policy for the Department of Defense, underscored how much attention transgender issues have gotten in U.S. politics and indicated Republicans plan to continue to highlight the politically polarizing topic. President-elect Donald Trump and many other Republicans blasted Democrats for supporting transgender rights during the 2024 election campaign, which ended with Republicans keeping control of the House and taking control of the Senate and White House starting next month.’WOKE IDEOLOGY’After it passed, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson praised the measure as refocusing the military on its core mission. “Our men and women in uniform should know their first obligation is protecting our nation, not woke ideology,” he said in a statement.The measure did not include some other Republican proposals on social issues, including an effort to prohibit TRICARE from covering gender-affirming care for transgender adults and a measure that would have reversed the Pentagon’s policy of funding travel for abortion for troops stationed in states where the procedure is banned. The massive bill is one of the few major pieces of legislation that Congress passes every year and lawmakers take great pride in having passed it every year for more than six decades.The bill is a compromise between Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate, reached during weeks of negotiations behind closed doors. House passage sends the measure to the Democratic-led Senate. Passage there would send it to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into law or veto.The NDAA authorizes Pentagon programs, but does not fund them. Congress must separately pass funding in a spending bill for the fiscal year ending in September 2025. That bill is unlikely to be enacted before March. More

At the peak of the outage, which started around 12:50 p.m. ET., more than 100,000 incidents were reported with Facebook (NASDAQ:META) and nearly 70,000 with Instagram.The number of reports has come down to over 1,000 for both apps as of 6 p.m. ET. Downdetector’s numbers are based on user-submitted reports. The actual number of affected users may vary. Some Facebook and Instagram users posted on X that they were encountering an error that said “something went wrong” and that Meta was working to get it fixed.Earlier this year, a technical issue led to an outage that impacted hundreds of thousands of Facebook and Instagram users globally for more than two.The platforms faced another outage in October, when services were largely restored within an hour. More

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Kristin Johnson, a top Democratic official at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, signalled on Wednesday she would be willing to stay on at the agency under new Republican leadership, serving as a “gadfly” on key issues like crypto and artificial intelligence.President-elect Donald Trump is expected to replace the current Democratic CFTC chair Rostin Behnam with a Republican pick, eventually giving the governing party control of the five-member commission.While the CFTC, which oversees commodity derivatives markets, has traditionally been a junior player in financial policy, it is likely to play a more prominent role as Trump’s administration starts to overhaul cryptocurrency regulations. Johnson’s term is due to expire in April, but speaking at the Reuters NEXT conference in New York on Wednesday, she said she was confident she could carry on doing constructive work in the CFTC’s minority, assuming the White House agrees with Democrats to re-nominate her for a second term.The Biden administration earlier this year nominated Johnson for a top Treasury Department role, but that move and other Democratic nominations have stalled with so little time left on the congressional calendar. “A lot of what happens in the minority is … raising really critical points that the majority might be willing to forego or compromise on … so kind of being a gadfly,” Johnson said.She added: “As a former academic I think I have this in spades.”During her time at the CFTC, Johnson has advocated for stronger rules to protect consumers from fraud in digital currency markets after the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, and is focusing on the ways artificial intelligence could be used both to commit financial crimes and to police them.”What happens next in the journey of integrating AI into financial markets is a really big and important question,” she said. “I think it’s a non-partisan question that really will be at the fore for the incoming administration.” More

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank is all but certain to cut interest rates again on Thursday and signal further easing in 2025 as inflation in the euro zone is nearly back at its target and the economy is faltering. The ECB has already cut rates at three of its last four meetings. Debate has nevertheless shifted to whether it is easing policy fast enough to support an economy that is at risk of recession and facing political instability at home and the prospect of a fresh trade war with the United States.That question is likely to dominate Thursday’s meeting but policy hawks, who still command a comfortable majority on the 26-member Governing Council, are likely to back just a small cut of 25 basis points, taking the benchmark rate to 3%.In a possible compromise with more dovish policymakers, the cut could come with tweaks to the ECB’s guidance to make clear that further policy easing is coming provided there are no new shocks to inflation, which could hit the central bank’s 2% target in the first half of 2025.”Fundamentals fully justify the December cut and a more dovish forward guidance, given the deterioration in the growth picture. Underlying inflationary pressures have eased and risks of further headwinds to growth have increased after the U.S. election results,” Annalisa Piazza at MFS Investment Management said. A cut is warranted because fresh projections will show inflation, above target for three years now, back at 2% in a few months’ time. That is partly because economies are barely growing across the 20 countries that share the euro.The outlook is so fraught with risk that some policymakers argue the ECB now risks undershooting its inflation target, as it did for nearly a decade before the pandemic, and should move more quickly to avoid falling behind the curve. But hawks say inflation is still a risk given rapid wage growth and the fast-rising cost of services, so that a steady stream of incremental steps is appropriate. U.S. protectionism and political instability in France and Germany are further reasons for caution. Governing Council members simply do not know what policies will be approved by president-elect Donald Trump’s new U.S. administration, how Europe will respond – or what the economic impact will be. Political turmoil in France and Germany’s upcoming election add to the uncertainty and could force the ECB to step in, reinforcing arguments that it should leave itself space to take bold action if needed. “The risk of a confidence crunch that could yet lead to a much steeper downturn in France, spreading through the euro zone via trade links, has inevitably risen,” Sandra Horsfield at Investec (LON:INVP) said. “Keeping powder dry for such an eventuality might be wise. Besides, a steep cut now might fan rather than ease market qualms,” she added. STRING OF CUTSFinancial markets have fully priced in a 25 basis point rate cut on Thursday, with the odds of a bigger step now close to zero – a big change from a few weeks ago when a half percentage point cut was seen as a real possibility. Investors then see a cut at every meeting until June, followed by at least one more cut in the second half of 2025, taking the deposit rate to at least 1.75% by year-end.Any change in the ECB’s guidance for the future is likely to be at the margins. It could drop its reference to needing “restrictive” policy to tame inflation, an implicit signal that rates will come down at least to the so-called neutral level at which they are neither stimulating nor slowing economic activity. The problem is that neutral is an undefined concept and each policymaker has a different estimate, putting the range between 1.75% and 3%, with most seeing it between 2% and 2.5%.But the ECB is likely to keep its intentions vague after having burned itself repeatedly by making explicit commitments that proved difficult or impossible to keep. “Given the massive international geopolitical and policy uncertainty, the ‘data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach to determining the appropriate level and duration of restriction’ is still appropriate,” Lorenzo Codogno at LC Macro Advisors said. More

(Reuters) -Photoshop maker Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) forecast fiscal 2025 revenue below Wall Street estimates on Wednesday, suggesting the company’s investments to weave AI into its software applications were taking longer than expected to bear fruit. Shares of the San Jose, California-based company fell nearly 9% in extended trading.The company forecast annual revenue for 2025 between $23.30 billion and $23.55 billion, compared with estimates of $23.78 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.Adobe is making significant investments in AI-driven image and video generation technologies in response to the growing competition from well-capitalized startups such as Stability AI and Midjourney.Although Adobe projected strong growth for the second half of the year in June, its forecast on Wednesday indicated the company was still struggling to monetize its AI push. “While the market’s initial fears about AI disruption have subsided, Adobe’s continued lack of AI monetization makes it increasingly difficult to pick them as a clear AI winner,” said Charlie Miner, analyst at Third Bridge.The company’s advancements into video-generation technology put it head-to-head with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which boasts its own model, Sora. Adobe expects foreign exchange volatility and its shift towards subscriptions to cut into its fiscal 2025 revenue by about $200 million.However, DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria said the company is well-positioned to benefit from a return of enterprise spending, including from AI.”Adobe’s image and video AI generation capabilities are getting broad adoption, which should continue to grow as the models get better,” Luria said. Last month, the company added software tools that let customers use AI to create images based on Adobe’s library of stock images. It forecast first-quarter revenue between $5.63 billion and $5.68 billion, which fell short of estimates of $5.73 billion. Adobe’s fourth-quarter revenue rose 11% to $5.61 billion from a year ago, beating market expectations of $5.54 billion.On an adjusted basis, the company earned $4.81 per share, compared with estimates of $4.66. More