Aurelia Butler

Readers are turning to fantasy books to escape grim headlines about the cost of living crisis and war in Ukraine, according to Bloomsbury Publishing that said annual sales and profits would be ahead of expectations.The group, which publishes JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, said there was increased demand for books by fantasy fiction authors such as Sarah J Maas, prompting it to upgrade its forecasts. “People have had too much reality, they’re turning to books as an enjoyable form of escape from quotidian worries,” said chief executive Nigel Newton. “It’s first and foremost the fallout from war and the cost of living crisis.”Bloomsbury said on Wednesday that it had contracted US writer Maas, whose success is partly attributable to the BookTok social media trend on TikTok, for seven further books. Her A Court of Thorns and Roses series is currently being made into a television series by Hulu. “These writers have built up huge followings, who are absolutely desperate to know what happens in the next series. So I think those authors will continue to do extremely well,” said Newton.Other authors that the publisher said were driving sales included the Oxford historian Peter Frankopan, for his new world history of environmental change The Earth Transformed, and dystopian fiction writer Samantha Shannon.The UK publisher expects revenue for the year ended February 28 to be more than £260mn, compared with market expectations of £242.6mn. Full-year profit before tax and “highlighted items” will be about £30mn, rather than the expected £26.9mn.Newton told the Financial Times that the cost of living crisis was nudging people towards books as an “affordable pastime”, while more expensive household expenditure was put on hold by those struggling with high energy bills and inflation. “Let’s face it, a paperback book costs £6.99, which is less than a month’s membership of a streaming service that you do not use as much as you used to,” he said.He said Bloomsbury’s academic publishing division was also doing well owing to the increasing numbers of school and university students in rapidly growing Asian countries such as India. “The demand for teaching materials in print or increasingly digitally are a tremendous opportunity,” he said.Analysts at Investec said the performance of Bloomsbury “continues to impress”, noting that the “virtuous flywheel” of good content in fiction and academia offered further growth opportunities. Bloomsbury’s shares were up 7.5 per cent by midday in London trading to 452p. Their value has risen almost 200 per cent in the past five years. More

(Reuters) – BlackRock Inc (NYSE:BLK) Chief Executive Laurence Fink warned on Wednesday the U.S. regional banking sector remains at risk after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and that inflation will persist and rates would continue to rise. In an annual letter, Fink described the current financial situation as the “price of easy money” after the Federal Reserve had to hike rates nearly 500 basis points to fight inflation, and that he expects more Fed rate increases.Fink wrote that after the regional banking crisis, the financial industry could see what he termed “liquidity mismatches.” That is because the low rates have driven some asset owners to raise their exposure to higher-yielding investments that are not easy to sell.“Bond markets were down 15% last year, but it still seemed, as they say in those old Western movies, ‘quiet, too quiet,’” Fink said in his letter, which was seen by Reuters. “Something else had to give as the fastest pace of rate hikes since the 1980s exposed cracks in the financial system.” Fink said that quick regulatory action helped stave off a wider crisis. He wrote that he expects a more divided world will interrupt supply chains and make inflation persistent and “more likely to stay closer to 3.5% or 4% in the next few years.”COMBINED MESSAGEFink’s annual letters to CEOs and investors, traditionally sent in January, have become a touchstone for corporate leaders as the New York firm he co-founded grew into the world’s largest asset manager. It had $8.6 trillion under management as of Dec. 31.This year Fink combined both letters into one wide-ranging, 20-page document touching on everything from the benefits of working in-person to his affinity for the 1980s pop music bank Talk Talk.He did not directly address the often-personal criticism he has received from U.S. Republicans who say BlackRock has put too much attention on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.But he cited what he called the “once unthinkable figure” of $120 billion that insurers had to cover for natural catastrophes in 2022, which he said showed why climate risk amounts to investment risk. He added that is “why BlackRock has been so vocal in recent years in advocating for disclosures and asking questions about how companies plan to navigate the energy transition,” although it is not BlackRock’s place to tell companies what to do.MARKETS ON EDGE Fink said it was not clear yet whether the banking crisis precipitated by rising interest rates would claim more victims, but it seemed inevitable that some banks will now pull back on lending to shore up their balance sheets. That will lead bank clients to turn more to capital markets for their financing in the face of what Fink called the “asset-liability mismatches” that doomed Silicon Valley Bank and several smaller institutions.“It’s too early to know how widespread the damage is,” Fink wrote. “The regulatory response has so far been swift, and decisive actions have helped stave off contagion risks. But markets remain on edge.”He did not refer to BlackRock’s own exposure to the regional banks. Reuters reported this week that, based on Morningstar data, mutual funds managed by BlackRock and some others appear to be among the most exposed to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank (NASDAQ:SBNY). BlackRock has previously said its diversified products “have limited exposure to Silicon Valley Bank.”High interest rates will also limit government’s spending, so business and government leaders must work together, Fink said.”The monetary and fiscal tools available to policymakers and regulators to address the current crisis are limited, especially with a divided government in the United States,” Fink wrote. Yet, North America could be one of the biggest beneficiaries of global tensions, given its large and diverse labor force, natural resources and technology investments, he said. More

Investing.com — The bond market swings back to expecting a 25 basis point hike from the Federal Reserve next week as the kneejerk reaction to last week’s bank collapses fades. Credit Suisse looks increasingly like the next shoe to drop as a key backer says it can’t (or won’t) pump in any more money. Retail sales for February are due and are expected to show a drop from an abnormally strong reading in January. China’s economy is making a so-so recovery, according to new data, while French inflation and a solid industrial output report for January keep the ECB on track for a big hike at Thursday’s meeting. And oil hits a 15-month low as global stockpiles grow. Here’s what you need to know in financial markets on Wednesday, March 15th.1. Market swings back to expecting a Fed rate hikeThe idea that the Federal Reserve would stop its interest rate hikes due to fears of provoking a banking collapse proved short-lived.Short-term interest rate futures are now back predicting a 25 basis point hike at next week’s Fed meeting, while bond yields retraced a big part of their decline in response to the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank (NASDAQ:SBNY). That’s down partly to the fact that Tuesday’s CPI report for February didn’t fall far enough to convince anyone that the battle with inflation is over, but is also due to the realization that a pause to rate hikes could be taken as a sign of panic, undoing any good work done at the weekend to stabilize the situation.There’s more important economic data due out at 08:30 ET (12:30 GMT), with February’s retail sales expected to show a 0.3% drop, which would follow January’s exceptionally strong 3.0% rise.2. China’s lukewarm recovery; euro zone data keeps ECB on track for 50 bp hikeNew figures out of China pointed to a solid if unspectacular recovery from the COVID ravages of late 2022.Retail sales led the way, rising 3.5% from a year earlier in the first two months of the year, while fixed asset investment growth ticked up to 5.5%, a sign that the real estate sector may be bottoming out. However, industrial production was up only 2.4%, less than expected, and there was a worrying rise in the unemployment rate, especially among younger age cohorts.Data out of the euro zone was no more encouraging, as a big upward revision to French inflation all but quashed any remaining hopes of the ECB trimming its plans for a 50 basis point rate hike on Thursday. Euro zone industrial production also surprised to the upside, with a 0.7% rise in January.3. Stocks fall as Credit Suisse low spooks nervy marketU.S. stocks are set to open sharply lower, as fear once again replaces relief as the dominant emotion. In particular, the strong move upward in regional bank stocks seen on Tuesday has given way to a more nuanced picture.Moody’s again reflected broader sentiment by cutting its outlook for the entire U.S. banking sector’s credit to negative. Credit Suisse (SIX:CSGN) provided an eerie, if unrelated echo, falling 22% in Europe after Saudi National Bank (TADAWUL:1180) said it couldn’t (or wouldn’t) pump any more money into the troubled lender.By 06:30 ET, Dow Jones futures were down 470 points or 1.5%, S&P 500 futures were also down by a similar amount, and Nasdaq 100 futures were down slightly less, by 1.4%.Facebook owner Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) is consolidating in premarket after hitting a 9-month high on Tuesday in response to its latest slimming-down exercise. Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) leads a thin earnings roster after the close, while Lennar (NYSE:LEN) is up after reporting better-than-expected figures on Tuesday evening.4. Samsung unveils massive chipmaking investments as South Korea responds to IRASamsung (KS:005930) said it will invest some $230 billion in its chipmaking facilities over the next 20 years. The investments account for more than half of those foreseen by a new South Korean government plan to shore up a key sector of the economy, which is caught uncomfortably in the middle of the tussle for global supremacy between the U.S. and China.South Korea’s 550 trillion won ($1 = 1,316 won) plan also envisages expanded tax breaks to raise the competitiveness of display and battery makers. Coming on the heels of the Inflation Reduction Act and comparable initiatives in Europe, the plan represents a further escalation of the global race to subsidize strategic industries in the new economy.5. Oil hits 15-month low as stockpiles growCrude oil prices fell to their lowest in 15 months as fears for the global economy increased in the wake of the U.S. banking collapses. The relatively anemic rebound in industrial production in China also prompted the unwinding of some bets on Chinese demand.By 07:00 ET, U.S. crude futures were down 1.6% at $70.22 a barrel, while Brent was down 1.6% at $76.22 a barrel.OPEC on Tuesday had kept its forecast for world oil demand growth this year unchanged at 2.3 million barrels a day, expecting a slowdown outside China to compensate for the rebound in demand there. The International Energy Agency said in its latest monthly report that global stockpiles had hit an 18-month high, creating a sizable buffer to cope with an expected tightening of the market later this year.The U.S. government will publish its weekly inventory data at 10:30 ET. More