Aurelia Butler

How well did you keep up with the news this week? Take our quiz.Shares of TPG jumped 15 per cent on their first day of trading as the private equity group co-founded by billionaires David Bonderman and Jim Coulter became the latest to capitalise on soaring valuations by tapping public markets to finance growth.TPG is the largest company to go public in the US so far this year, and its successful listing comes as the wider IPO market grapples with poor performance and rising volatility.“The markets are turbulent,” TPG chief executive Jon Winkelried told the Financial Times. “This IPO was a high-quality institutional book from a company that’s highly profitable and has been around for 30 years.”In going public, TPG is preparing to dramatically expand its platform, which has $109bn in assets, by launching new funds and investment products and striking acquisitions. TPG raised $1bn in the IPO.Bonderman, 79, and Coulter, 62, co-founded TPG in 1992 after cutting their teeth as dealmakers working under Texas oilman Robert Bass. The public listing will also help to cement succession planning from Bonderman and Coulter. Winkelried, who was named sole chief executive in May 2021, is set to join Coulter and Bonderman as a controlling shareholder through a class of supervoting shares.Thanks to all our readers who voted in yesterday’s poll. Nearly two-thirds of you thought the Fed was not acting quickly enough to combat inflation. Here’s the rest of today’s news — GordonFive more stories in the news1. Tech shares fall heavily A sell-off yesterday of shares in the technology sector is the latest reaction to the growing expectation that the Federal Reserve will tighten monetary policy aggressively this year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index dropped 2.5 per cent while the benchmark S&P 500 index slid 1.4 per cent.Opinion: Investors are right to kick the tyres on the long tech rally, says West Coast editor Richard Waters.2. January 6 riot panel subpoenas tech groups The congressional committee probing the January 6 attack on the US Capitol has issued subpoenas to Alphabet, Reddit, Twitter and Facebook parent Meta, demanding records relating to the 2020 US presidential election. The subpoenas signal a significant escalation in the work of the January 6 committee.3. Ukraine says government websites hit by ‘massive cyber attack’ At least 10 websites ceased functioning today, the government in Kyiv said. The websites of the ministerial cabinet, the foreign, education, agriculture, emergency, energy, and environment ministries as well as sites linked to the treasury were affected, according to Ukrainian officials.4. MI5 warns of ‘political interference’ by Chinese agent British MPs have been warned by intelligence service MI5 that a Chinese agent has been “engaged in political interference activities” in parliament for the Chinese Communist party, including donating more than £420,000 to an opposition Labour member of parliament.5. Prince Andrew to lose royal titles Buckingham Palace announced yesterday that the Duke of York will stop using the title “his royal highness” and lose his honorary military titles. The decision came a day after a judge in New York rejected an attempt by the Queen’s second son to prevent a civil court action lawsuit by Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Prince Andrew denies all the charges.

Prince Andrew will lose a long list of honorary military titles including his ceremonial role as colonel of the Grenadier Guards © Dominic Lipinski/PA

Coronavirus digestThe US Supreme Court has blocked Joe Biden’s mandate directing big companies to impose “vaccine or test” mandates on employees. The decision is a blow to the US government’s response to the Covid pandemic and comes as hospitalisations linked to the virus reach record levels.The Australian government has cancelled Novak Djokovic’s visa for a second time, just days before the start of the Australian Open tennis tournament begins in Melbourne.Pressure increased on UK prime minister Boris Johnson after reports that his staff held two parties the night before Queen Elizabeth was pictured sitting alone during the funeral of her husband, Prince Philip, last year.China’s trade surplus soared to $676bn in 2021, its highest level on record. The data highlights China’s dominance in global trade during the coronavirus era.The worst harm anti-vaxxers do is to their families, writes Simon Kuper. How will the grief of losing an unvaccinated loved one shape the millions of bereaved — and their relationship to the rest of us?Pandemic-era managers deserve our sympathy, says the FT in an editorial.For more on how the global economy is bouncing back from the pandemic, sign up to our Road to Recovery newsletter.The days aheadUS bank earnings Investors’ hopes are high as JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo kick off fourth-quarter results season for banks. Asset manager BlackRock also reports its latest financial results.Economic data US retail sales probably remained unchanged in December compared with the month before, according to economists’ projections, as a supply crunch and rising prices prompted many shoppers to spend earlier than usual ahead of the holiday season. Fed speakers With the Federal Reserve gearing up for tighter monetary policy investors will closely watch remarks from New York Fed chair John Williams, a voting member of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee.What else we’re reading and listening toWashington’s Wall Street problem There is outcry inside Congress and across the US over investments made by public officials, which have raised questions about unfair market opportunities and prompted lawmakers to pursue bills to ban active investing. Who among the powerful should be allowed to trade?

© FT montage/AP/Bloomberg

Bain & Co, tax and Jacob Zuma As the fiscal bulwark of a young democracy, South Africa’s revenue service was renowned as one of the continent’s most effective tax gatherers. But a judicial report this month has criticised management consultant Bain & Co as an enabler of graft, shining a light on the muddy nexus between politics and corporations.Don’t deride the Davos prophets of doom Each winter, the World Economic Forum polls its members about perceived risks. This year’s survey of Davos-goers is startlingly gloomy. Doubly striking is the detail about what scares the Davos elite, writes Gillian Tett.The best business books for January From the homespun wisdom of a cheerleading coach to how to deal with the “jerk” at work, here are this month’s top business reads.Bridging the workplace generation gap Often in the office, there can be dissonance between the “wisdom and experience” of Gen X and Boomers, and the “innovative energy” of those in their twenties and thirties. But what are the perks and pitfalls of working with people much older (or younger) than you? Isabel Berwick explores on the Working It podcast. Why is it considered OK to be ageist? Lucy Kellaway explores the unspoken prejudice — and a puzzling discrimination against our future selves.Readers respondA busy week of diplomacy aimed at de-escalating the Ukraine crisis appears to have failed, with Russia declaring the talks at a “dead end”. Earlier this week we asked for your thoughts on the stand-off between the west and Moscow. Here are some excerpts from what you have been saying:Given the historically composite structure of Ukraine, Nato and the EU should begin by publicly recognising the right of parts of Ukraine to seek independence — Hugh Small, EnglandRussia can’t win a war against the USA, so it is not in its interest to provoke it. But, if threatened, it may react — Anastase Livieratos, MonacoRussia and Ukraine: Thought Experiment. Imagine it is 1975 and the Cuban Revolution has spread to Mexico which increasingly aligns itself with Moscow. How would the US react? The west is dangerously unimaginative about Russian sensibilities — David D’Avray, OxfordThink of this issue as if Russia or China proposed to form a security alliance with Mexico. The US would not tolerate such a move. Moreover, it’s past time that Germany steps up to the task of ensuring European security, instead of its normal appeasement in service to commerce — Peter Ferrara, New YorkHistory informs you must not roll over to bullies. Nato must prepare immediately — Peter Atherton, Manchester, EnglandThanks for all your comments and please keep them coming to [email protected]. More

Investing.com — Retail sales data will give a fresh indication of how much the market has to worry about rising interest rates and the strength of the economy. Bank earnings kick off the fourth-quarter reporting season, and diplomatic talks aimed at stopping a fresh Russian invasion of Ukraine break down with no progress. European energy prices surge again in response. Here’s what you need to know in financial markets on Friday, 14th January.1. Earnings season kicks off in earnestThe U.S. earnings season kicks off in earnest with fourth-quarter updates from JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) and Citigroup (NYSE:C).The results for JPM and Citi in particular are likely to be sustained by continued strength in dealmaking and capital markets toward the end of the year, with the economic recovery also helping to allow further releases of reserves from previous quarters. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon earlier this week told clients he expects another year of solid economic growth in 2022, which will likely be reflected in the bank’s outlook.The only headwind may be that Wall Street has already had a very solid start to the year, as rising long-term interest rates underpin the outlook for future lending margins. Wells Fargo stock is already up 17% year-to-date, while Citigroup stock is up 12% and JPM is up over 6%.2. Retail sales due; China trade flows start to coolU.S. retail sales numbers are due for December at 8:30 AM ET and are expected to have edged down 0.1% in seasonally-adjusted terms on the month – a subdued end to a wild year.Core retail sales are expected to have risen 0.2%, a fifth straight monthly rise, despite signs of consumers having run down the savings they accumulated last year. Experian’s results, released last night, spoke of a sharp rise in consumer inquiries for credit scores. Elsewhere overnight, there were signs of the massive boom in China’s merchandise trade cooling off at the end of the year. Export growth slowed to 20.9% on the year, while import growth slowed from over 30% to less than 20%. Even so, the country’s $676 billion trade surplus last year was a new record and a powerful illustration of how much consumer demand was created by government stimulus further west.3. Stocks set to open with modest bounce after fresh rate nerves hit techU.S. stocks are set to open modestly higher later, stabilizing after Thursday’s abrupt sell-off on fresh fears about a year of interest rate hikes.Federal Reserve Governor Chris Waller told Bloomberg that three rate hikes for 2022 “is a good baseline”, a comment taken to imply a risk of more being necessary. In addition, private-sector economists have raised the prospect of the Fed ending its bond purchases immediately when it meets later this month.By 6:20 AM ET (1120 GMT), Dow Jones futures were up 106 points, or 0.3%, while S&P 500 futures were up 0.2% and Nasdaq 100 futures were flat. The Tech-heavy Nasdaq had also sharply underperformed on Thursday, falling 2.5%.The 10-Year benchmark Treasury yield was up 3 basis points at 1.75%.4. U.S.-Russia talks on Ukraine break down; ruble falls, Europe gas price surgesWholesale energy prices in Europe soared again on a combination of factors, raising the likelihood of economic disruption in the coming months.Talks between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine broke down without making any progress overnight, and that was followed by a widespread cyberattack on Ukrainian government websites. The rouble and Russian stocks sold off on fears of another Russian incursion being met with fresh U.S. and European sanctions, even though U.S. Senators blocked new sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline on Thursday.Benchmark northwest European gas futures rose as much as 13% to 96 euros a megawatt-hour ($110/MWh), on the same day as fresh data showing that European storage levels had fallen below 50%, some six weeks earlier than usual. That raises the prospects of rationing later on this winter if the unseasonably mild weather turns colder.At the same time, electricity futures soared again as Electricite de France cut its output forecast due to more unplanned reactor outages. EDF (PA:EDF) shares fell 23%, the most on record, with the news following a government decree forcing it to sell more power at a steep discount to market prices to ease the pain for consumers.5. Oil rises again on China trade, Russia tension; U.S. rig count eyedCrude oil prices rose to fresh two-month highs overnight after the Chinese trade data, against a backdrop over lingering worries about the ability of the global oil sector to produce the oil that a recovering world will need this year.By 6:30 AM ET, U.S. crude futures were up 1.1% at $83.00 a barrel, while Brent was up 1.2% at $85.44 a barrel.Baker Hughes’ drilling rig count and the CFTC’s positioning data round off the week later. More

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s economy grew strongly in November to finally surpass its size just before the country went into its first COVID-19 lockdown, official data showed on Friday.The world’s fifth-biggest economy expanded by a much faster than expected 0.9% in November – before the latest wave of COVID-19 infections and restrictions for many firms – leaving it 0.7% bigger than it was in February 2020, the ONS said. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast monthly gross domestic product growth of 0.4% for November.”It’s amazing to see the size of the economy back to pre-pandemic levels in November – a testament to the grit and determination of the British people,” finance minister Rishi Sunak said.Other economies have already recovered their pre-COVID size, chief among them the United States.Britain’s economy shrank by more than 9% in 2020, one of the biggest pandemic slumps among the world’s rich nations. Despite November’s growth acceleration, GDP probably took a fresh hit in December when the Omicron coronavirus variant swept Europe, and the loss of momentum is likely to have stretched into January with many firms reporting severe staff absences and consumers still wary of going out.On Thursday, data showed record levels of staff absence due to COVID-19 around the turn of the year.But health officials think the Omicron infections wave has now peaked in Britain and analysts say the blow to the economy is likely to be short-lived, allowing the Bank of England to continue raising interest rates this year. The ONS said, data revisions aside, GDP in quarterly terms would reach or surpass its pre-coronavirus level in the October-December period of 2021, as long as economic output does not fall by more than 0.2% in December.The BoE’s current forecasts show GDP returning to its size at the end of 2019 in the first quarter of 2022. EARLY CHRISTMAS SHOPPERS, MASS JABSThe ONS said retailers had a strong November – when many consumers bought Christmas presents earlier than usual – while architects, couriers and accountants also had a bumper month.Construction recovered from several weak months as raw materials became easier to source after problems in global supply chains.The country’s rush to give booster vaccinations against COVID-19 and its test-and-trace programme provided extra momentum to the GDP figures.Britain’s economy will still face challenges in the months ahead, even once coronavirus restrictions known as “plan B” are relaxed.Consumers are facing an inflation rate that is expected to reach a 30-year high of 6% or more in April – when energy tariffs will leap by an estimated 50% – and an increase in social security contributions also starting that month.”While the UK economy should rebound once Plan B measures are lifted, surging inflation and persistent supply chain disruption may mean that the UK’s economic growth prospects remain under pressure for much of 2022,” Suren Thiru, head of economics at the British Chambers of Commerce, said.Sterling edged up against the U.S. dollar and the euro after the GDP data.Separately, the ONS released trade data showing that Britain’s goods trade deficit narrowed slightly to 11.3 billion pounds in November from 11.8 billion pounds in October.Imports from non-European Union countries were higher than from EU countries for the 11th consecutive month, and the gap was at its widest point of the year, the ONS said.Britain’s trading relationship with the EU has been hit by the introduction of new post-Brexit rules after the country left the bloc’s single market at the start of 2021. More

European shares fell on Friday, following declines in Asia, after surging US inflation focused traders’ minds on how the end of pandemic-era monetary stimulus may pressure equity markets. The regional Stoxx 600 Europe index declined 0.6 per cent in morning dealings and London’s FTSE 100 traded flat. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng share gauge lost 0.2 per cent and Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed 1.3 per cent lower.Futures markets implied the blue-chip S&P 500 share index would rise 0.1 per cent in early New York dealings, following a 1.4 per cent fall on Thursday. Inflation figures on Wednesday revealed that US consumer prices rose by an annual 7 per cent in December, their fastest pace in almost four decades. A day later, separate figures showed that US wholesale prices rose at 9.7 per cent in December, the most since this measure of what businesses pay suppliers was first calculated in 2010. “If inflation heads higher then the fear factor really does come in,” said Aneeka Gupta, research director at ETF provider WisdomTree. Officials at the US Federal Reserve, whose main funds rate affects borrowing costs and stock market valuations worldwide, have also signalled their support for the first interest rate rise of the pandemic era in March. Swaps markets have priced in a gradual pace of increases, with the funds rate ending the year at 1 per cent or below. But equity investors who enjoyed double-digit gains in the past two years are querying whether such projections are too optimistic. “The markets are in this period of transition which of course always goes with some doubts,” added Geraldine Sundstrom, a managing director and portfolio manager at Pimco.“We are moving from a time where inflation was deemed transitory and central banks would remain accommodative as far as the eye could see to a time when it is natural to expect some removal of monetary accommodation, but how much that should be is the big question mark for everyone,” she added. The Stoxx technology sub-index was one of the worst performers in Europe on Friday, dropping 1.4 per cent. This followed a 2.5 per cent fall for Wall Street’s Nasdaq Composite gauge in Thursday’s session.Ultra-low interest rates can boost tech and other high-growth stocks by lowering the discount rate professional investors use to value equities, which in turn makes cashflows expected far into the future more valuable. “When interest rates are very low, tech valuations get bloated,” WisdomTree’s Gupta said. “As interest rate expectations start to rise,” she added, “these valuations come off”.In government debt markets, the yield on the US 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to its price, added 0.04 percentage points to 1.75 per cent. The yield on the two-year Treasury note, which closely tracks interest rate expectations, rose 0.03 percentage points to 0.93 per cent.The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six other currencies, traded flat.In an indication that Russian geopolitical tensions were beginning to seep into financial markets, Moscow’s benchmark Moex stock index was down 1.8 per cent, taking its weekly decline to more than 4 per cent.Brent crude, the oil benchmark, added 1.3 per cent to $85.57 a barrel. More

The German economy shrank as much as 1 per cent in the final three months of last year, as the latest coronavirus restrictions and supply chain bottlenecks kept output below pre-pandemic levels. The Federal Statistical Office on Friday published initial estimates showing Europe’s largest economy managed growth of 2.7 per cent last year, despite fourth-quarter output falling between 0.5 and 1 per cent from the previous quarter.The figures mark a rebound from 2020, when German gross domestic product shrank 4.6 per cent in a record postwar recession caused by the Covid-19 crisis. But the country is lagging behind other big economies, including the US, France and UK, which have rebounded above pre-pandemic levels of output.Georg Thiel, president of Destatis, the German statistics agency, said the country’s GDP remained 2 per cent below pre-pandemic levels. “Despite the ongoing pandemic situation and increasing supply and material bottlenecks, the German economy was able to recover after the slump in the previous year, although economic output has not yet reached the pre-crisis level.”Germany’s vast manufacturing sector has been hamstrung for months by supply chain delays and shortages of materials such as semiconductors. Its larger services sector is also being hampered by new restrictions to contain a record surge in coronavirus infections.“The final quarter of 2021 was probably weak given necessary restrictions in contact-intense services and production difficulties in manufacturing due to persistent supply bottlenecks,” the German finance ministry said in a statement.Economists expect the German economy to rebound strongly later this year once coronavirus restrictions are lifted and supply bottlenecks ease. But they worry that if the problems persist, the country could slide into recession — defined as two consecutive quarters of falling GDP.Carsten Brzeski, head of macro research at ING, said: “The annual numbers mask a contraction in the economy in the final quarter of 2021, emphasising the high risk for the economy to fall into an outright recession at the turn of the year.”

The Bundesbank last month cut its German growth forecasts but said it still expected the economy to rebound above pre-pandemic levels of GDP in the coming months with growth of 4.2 per cent in 2022, boosted by a “boom in private consumption”, as well as higher exports and business investment.“From early summer onwards, we expect a strong economic recovery again with the seasonal waning of corona,” said Jörg Krämer, chief economist at Commerzbank. “This is also supported by the fact that manufacturing’s order books are fuller than at any time since statistics began in the early 1960s.”Destatis said output in the country’s manufacturing sector last year remained 6 per cent below 2019 levels, while the shortfall in the sports, culture and entertainment sector was 9.9 per cent. This was partly offset by a rebound in the public sector, which was boosted by increased government spending, as the country’s budget deficit increased slightly to €153.9bn last year, the second highest since the country’s reunification more than 30 years ago. More