Aurelia Butler

Investing.com — U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will meet virtually for their most substantive talks yet, aiming to take some heat out of frictions over trade and Taiwan. The Democrats’ spending plans are moving closer to being realized, while Elon Musk grinds his teeth in chagrin. Japan’s third-quarter GDP data disappoint, while China’s October numbers were better than expected. Stocks are set to edge higher but there’s no major data due, and Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSa) is becoming just ‘Shell’ as life after the pandemic forces it to ditch a century of tradition. Here’s what you need to know in financial markets on Monday, 15th November.1. When Joe (virtually) met XiU.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will talk later in what officials have briefed is likely to be their most substantial virtual meeting yet.The meeting comes only days after both leaders achieved some important domestic policy goals, Biden securing agreement for his infrastructure spending package and Xi winning what amounts to a mandate to rule for life from the Communist Party’s top brass.The two are expected to discuss issues including trade, where China still lags its commitments under the deal it made with President Donald Trump, and Taiwan, which has been subjected to increasingly frequent and aggressive military patrolling by Chinese mainland aviation in recent months.One data point providing a favorable backdrop is that the yuan is trading close to its highest in three years against the U.S. dollar, despite a sharp slowdown in Chinese growth in the third quarter.2. Democrats push to pass spending bill this weekHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi is lining up a vote on the Democrats’ $2 billion spending package on education, healthcare and the energy transition as early as this week, having secured enough votes for it to break the current deadlock, according to various reports. The smaller infrastructure spending bill is set to become law later Monday. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk again tried to deflect blame for his substantial sales of Tesla stock on to the party at the weekend, after selling a further block of stock on Friday to meet a tax liability that is due under legislation passed by the previous Congress.Progressives have started to drop their opposition to the way the spending bill has been pruned, having been chastened by some poor performances in mayoral and gubernatorial elections two weeks ago. The likelihood of Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell – a bogeyman for the left of the party – being sacrificed as a pawn in this game of 3D chess appear to have risen, with more than one report over the weekend talking up the possibility of Biden nominating Lael Brainard to succeed him. 3. Stocks set to open higher; Planemakers in focusU.S. stock markets are expected to open higher later, taking the news of the Democrats’ spending bill positively and still apparently confident that last week’s inflation scare won’t result in a hasty rise in official U.S. interest rates.By 6:15 AM ET (1115 GMT), Dow Jones futures were up 100 points, or 0.3%, while S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures were both up 0.2%.Stocks likely to be in focus later include Tyson Foods (NYSE:TSN), which reports earnings at a time when rising food prices ahead of the holiday season are grabbing attention, and Advance Auto Parts, which has already released quarterly numbers.  Also in focus, as the Dubai Air Show opens, will be Airbus (OTC:EADSY) and Boeing (NYSE:BA). Airbus has already announced a 255-plane order from the stable of airlines led by private equity group Indigo Partners.4. Coal gets a stay of executionCoal had its lease of life as an energy source extended after China and India pressured the rest of negotiators at the COP26 conference to drop a commitment to phasing it out.The final declaration from the summit spoke of a ‘phasing down’ of coal power instead. The reluctance of China to wean itself off coal is likely to harden opinion in Europe – and possibly North America – for imposing carbon taxes on imports from countries with lower environmental standards. That process may be helped – at the edges – by a surprising success at COP26 in moving closer to a common set of rules for carbon trading mechanisms.5. Oil weakens on dollar strength; Farewell, ‘Royal Dutch’Oil prices weakened on Monday as the dollar’s strength and disappointing economic data out of the world’s third-largest economy weighed. Japan said its gross domestic product shrank by an annualized 3.0% in the third quarter, more than expected. The news was only partly offset by slightly better-than-expected industrial production and retail sales data from China.By 6:30 AM ET, the January futures contract for crude oil traded at $78.67 a barrel, down 1.3% from Friday, while the Brent contract traded down 1.5% at $80.98 a barrel.Elsewhere, Royal Dutch Shell is set to become just ‘Shell’: the Anglo-Dutch oil major succumbed to the pressures of post-pandemic, pre-energy transition life by scrapping its dual share structure in an effort to squeeze out unnecessary costs More

Hello again from Seoul, where South Koreans are embracing the end of many coronavirus restrictions. One of the most noticeable changes has been the rediscovery of hoesik, or after work dinners that usually involve a lot of barbecued meat and a lot of soju. We’ll have to see whether a boom in foreign wine imports, which were buoyed by the pandemic-induced trends of homsul and honsul (drinking at home, and drinking alone), will be sustained with the curfews on evening activities now lifted.The start to this week will be dominated by questions over the failures of COP26 and of the direction of US-China relations when presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping hold a high-stakes virtual summit. But today’s Trade Secrets is looking ahead to the Beijing Winter Olympics, now just three months away. We’re of the opinion that as governments and corporate sponsors fail to ask tough questions of China over the alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang, the task (and the risk) will soon fall upon the athletes.Charted waters looks at the impact of different nations’ energy sources in lowering emissions related to usage of electric vehicles. As governments and sponsors stay silent, will athletes speak out?A storm is gathering over the Beijing Winter Olympics.Alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang have been labelled as genocide by the US government and crimes against humanity by many campaign groups.There are mounting calls for diplomats and dignitaries, as well as sponsors and broadcasters to either boycott the games or, at the very least, to publicly hold China to account.However, Trade Secrets believes that government and sponsors will ultimately shy away from the issue.And it will instead be athletes who are most likely to draw attention to Beijing over its treatment of the Uyghurs and other minority groups.For a succinct recap on Xinjiang, 43 countries at the UN — including the US and the rest of the G7 — in late October issued a joint statement outlining credible reports “that indicate the existence of a large network of ‘political re-education’ camps where more than a million people have been arbitrarily detained”.The statement went on: “We have seen an increasing number of reports of widespread and systematic human rights violations, including reports documenting torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, forced sterilisation, sexual and gender-based violence, and forced separation of children.”It added: “There are severe restrictions on freedom of religion or belief and the freedoms of movement, association and expression as well as on Uyghur culture. Widespread surveillance disproportionately continues to target Uyghurs and members of other minorities.”More damning accounts exist. With Xinjiang in mind, earlier this year the Financial Times raised the question of whether banning athletes from participating in events in China would make any difference in changing the behaviour of the Chinese government. Looking back at campaigns such as the sporting boycott of apartheid South Africa, the paper’s editorial board pointed out that past boycotts were effective only when they are both sustained and co-ordinated with broader international efforts. For some, reconciling the situation in Xinjiang with Beijing’s hosting of the games is not only unethical, it is unconscionable.In June, an international cross-party group of legislators, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, suggested the Games be relocated. Activists from 200 different human rights groups in September wrote to international broadcast networks, including the BBC, urging them to cancel deals to show the sports event.And last week, Human Rights Watch, a US-based campaign group, said its letters to the Games’ biggest corporate sponsors asking companies to use their leverage to address human rights abuses in China drew almost nothing in the way of responses.At a press conference on Friday, Sophie Richardson, director of the China programme at Human Rights Watch, made the argument that sponsors should be able to publish “robust human rights due diligence strategies” to justify their involvement in the games. But instead, she said, “companies seem much more interested in trying desperately not to have this conversation”.For the sponsors — which include global brands such as Visa, Coca-Cola, Airbnb, Omega and Samsung — and maybe even the broadcasters, the Olympics in China pose something of a lose-lose. Staying in means their brands will be associated with supporting the Chinese government. Pulling out means not only losing the commercial opportunities, but, possibly more ominously, risking a political backlash and boycott by Chinese consumers. Trade Secrets has written about what options foreign companies have if they find themselves in the crosshairs of increasingly nationalistic Chinese shoppers. To summarise: there are few good ones.For a taste of what an episode like this might look like, go no further than actor John Cena’s “apology to China” after calling Taiwan a country in a promotional video for Fast & Furious 9. It is not pretty. But if human rights campaigners fail to force the companies to act what is next? It appears that attention will soon fall upon the athletes. Indeed, Richardson noted that the situation facing athletes was “terrible”.“They don’t really get a choice. They can either give up their opportunity to compete at all, or say they don’t want to compete in environments like these,” she said.Despite that sympathy, athletes are among the groups that human rights campaigners will be trying to educate in the coming months on the issues in Xinjiang, as well, perhaps, on China’s actions in Hong Kong, Tibet and Taiwan. The risk of athletes speaking out at the games is a serious and awkward one for Beijing. We are in an unparalleled era of activism.Four years on from NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the US national anthem, high profile international sports events rarely make it to the opening whistle, buzzer or starting gun, without a sign of protest. Fans, who also want to be on the right side of history, now expect it. Equally, sponsors are expected to stand behind athletes such as tennis star Naomi Osaka who regularly speak out on thorny issues of social justice and race. But in Beijing dissent and protest is simply not tolerated. Any public criticism from international Olympians bringing disrepute upon China may well come at a very high personal cost. If there is a protest — perhaps a statement at a press conference or a banner unfurled embarrassing Xi or the government — the very politicians, diplomats and sponsors who have tried to dodge the issue this year may find themselves inescapably brought back into the fray.While not a perfect example, China’s treatment of Canada’s two Michaels — innocent men jailed for nearly three years, caught in a game of hostage diplomacy — does serve as reminder of the stakes at which Beijing plays. And as we wrote two months ago, Xi’s China might not care about reputational damage from such an international incident as much as one might expect. Yet if these Games end without a word from governments, companies or athletes over China’s treatment of the Uyghurs, someone might well ask: who really won?Charted watersLex published an interesting note on Friday examining whether electric vehicles were becoming more green. The answer to this question depends in large part on the degree to which batteries can be recharged using cleaner forms of energy. The chart shows that, owing to their greater reliance on nuclear and wind power, France and the UK have been more effective in reducing emissions related to electric vehicle usage compared with Germany and China, where there is greater use of coal. Claire JonesTrade linksChina has accused the EU of threatening world trade, with Beijing’s ambassador to the bloc accusing it of imposing too many barriers and regulations on manufacturers. Global manufacturers are facing another problem in their supply chain after the price of magnesium spiked (Nikkei, $) and highlighted their vulnerability to policy shocks in China, which accounts for 80 per cent of the world’s production. The excellent Robert Armstrong looks into whether those bottlenecks are really important in and of themselves, or if it’s merely a case of super-high demand for goods. Harry Dempsey has a great piece on how a high-end cycling manufacturer is struggling to fulfil orders owing to said bottlenecks. The FT also has a Special Report out today on the Future of Logistics — well worth a look for those after a deeper understanding of supply chain snags. Australia has vowed to support the US in a campaign to defend Taiwan from China. The EU is considering imposing sweeping sanctions on scores of Belarusian officials, a Syrian airline and a hotel in Minsk as part of measures to press authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko to stop the flow of migrants to Europe’s borders.Singapore state investor Temasek is temporarily halting new investment in Chinese tech companies owing to uncertainty over Beijing’s crackdown on the sector, its chief strategist told Nikkei Asia ($). Francesca Regalado and Claire Jones More

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s property woes worsened on all fronts last month, as price falls in both new and resale homes amid deeper contractions in construction starts and investment by developers piled pressure on the sector in a rare confluence of declines.The Chinese property market, accounting for a quarter of gross domestic product by some metrics, has slowed sharply since May, with sentiment increasingly shaken by stress in the sector in the wake of a growing liquidity crisis that has engulfed some of the country’s biggest and most indebted developers. Most analysts, however, expect demand and supply to return to more normal conditions by the end of the year or early 2022 as regulators tweak their policies to stabilise the sector. Prices of new homes dropped 0.2% on average last month from September, according to Reuters calculations of data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday, the first decline since March 2015. In the resale market, prices slumped in all but six of the 70 major cities tracked by the bureau. On the supply side, new construction starts plunged 33.14% on year in October, extending the 13.54% fall in September, while overall investment by developers in projects dropped 5.4%, deepening from the 3.5% decline a month earlier, Reuters calculations of the NBS data showed. Tougher regulations on new borrowing since the summer of last year have squeezed developers financially and cast an ever lengthening shadow on new projects. China is expected to stand firm on policies to curb excess borrowing by developers and speculative home purchases, although it has eased financing conditions to help genuine home buyers.(GRAPHIC: New home prices fall in many mainland China cities – https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-ECONOMY/HOMEPRICES/lbpgnowdwvq/chart.png) REGULATORS TARGET STABILITY”Overall, the ‘bottom’ of real estate policies has emerged, but the market is still adjusting downwards,” said Zhang Dawei, chief analyst with property agency Centaline. “Policies will become more and more relaxed, and the market is expected to gradually stabilise, as the purpose of regulations is to stabilise the market, with it neither sharply rising or declining,” Zhang said. Authorities said in September that banks ought to offer financial support for genuine home buyers with so-called “rigid” demand, referring to purchasing or renting from those recently married or seeking low-cost housing. New mortgage loans jumped 40% in October from the previous month to 348.1 billion yuan ($54.55 billion), although the amount was just 7% above the monthly average in the first nine months of the year. Some Chinese banks in recent weeks have sped up the disbursement of home loans to support sentiment among buyers, but no fresh wave of new approvals have been granted to lenders, bankers previously told Reuters.”The market is expected to bottom out at the end of the year or early next year,” as supply and demand for mortgages will return to normal, said Xu Xiaole, analyst at Beike Research Institute. In October, monthly prices rose in 13 of 70 cities, less than 27 cities reporting price gains in September, the smallest number since March 2015.During the month, homes sales tumbled 22.65% on year to 1.24 trillion yuan, Reuters calculations showed, the fourth straight decline and the lowest this year. In the resale home market, prices in 64 of 70 major cities tracked by the NBS declined, with prices in two unchanged and higher in four. Resale prices have fallen in nearly all cities so far this year, with at least 20 cities seeing declines in five months or more. In the southern tech hub of Shenzhen, prices have slumped for six consecutive months.($1 = 6.3818 Chinese yuan renminbi)(This story has been refiled to fix verb in para 8 to read ‘declining’, not ‘decline’) More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A year ago, as the coronavirus built toward its most intense peak, the U.S. economy was in a dark spot with job growth stalled, more than 10 million out of work and about to lose unemployment benefits, and warnings of a slide back into recession.After the deployment of three vaccines and two rounds of government spending since, some measures of the economy have now hit pre-pandemic levels – and shifted the challenge for policymakers from battling a health crisis to determining which remaining problems are still rooted in the pandemic and which may need longer-term solutions.Across issues as sensitive as racial employment gaps and as tangled as the path of inflation, that question will figure centrally in Federal Reserve and political debates over where economic and monetary policy should turn next, and whether those policies ultimately mesh or clash with each other. The Fed’s focus is on high inflation it hopes is mostly pandemic related and likely to ease without the need for higher interest rates. President Joe Biden’s focus is on a just-passed $1 trillion infrastructure package and a follow-on $1.75 trillion bill focused on education, healthcare and climate change.”We have been so focused on short-term recovery,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at payroll processor ADP, but “it is not just about going back to where we started, it is really taking stock of where we are and the structural changes that have been produced by COVID.”That could range from a workforce made permanently smaller by retirements, changes in work preference and declining immigration, to inflation shifted persistently higher because globally, she said, “the free flow of goods and services is not the same as it was.” IS THE RECOVERY COMPLETE?On Nov. 9, 2020, when Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE) announced its COVID-19 vaccine was effective, an Oxford Economics “recovery tracker” stood at 80.5, nearly 20 percentage points below the start of the pandemic. It would go lower still, to 72, as the virus spread and firms unexpectedly shed jobs again. Late last month it passed 100, meaning that across a combination of measures of production, employment, consumption and health, the economy was on net back where it started before the coronavirus. (GRAPHIC: Oxford Economics Recovery Index – https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ECONOMY/OXFORDINDEX/jznvnyedlpl/chart.png) That doesn’t mean every metric had climbed to its starting point, just that for every remaining weak spot – hotel occupancy for example – something offsets it like a jump in restaurant visits or rising use of public transit.Similarly for the labor market, the remaining shortfalls are glaring. Some 4.2 million fewer people are on U.S. payrolls than in February 2020. But the impulse seems there for continued job gains, between record numbers of job openings, rising wages, and people willing to quit jobs presumably for better ones. (GRAPHIC: Unemployed to job openings – https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-FED/JOBS/egvbkmeoepq/chart.png) Many economists and Fed officials feel it is just a matter of time, perhaps another year, before the economy hits full employment. A Kansas City Fed labor market index shows a job market running well above its long-term average with still more upward momentum. (GRAPHIC: Kansas City Fed labor index – https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-FED/JOBS/mopanjoqmva/chart.png) PANDEMIC FISSURES, OR SOMETHING MORE?Outside the doors of the Kansas City Fed, that index would seem to match the facts on the ground. As of September, Missouri and neighboring Kansas had unemployment rates below 4% versus 4.6% nationally.Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows employment in Kansas higher than in February 2020, with Missouri not far behind.That’s not true everywhere. In the industrial Midwest through the mid-Atlantic and New England employment is as much as 9% below the pre-pandemic level. The two largest state economies, California and New York, are both about 5% short. (GRAPHIC: A still disjointed recovery – https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ECONOMY/JOBS/jnvwexybwvw/chart.png) The differences may stem from tradeoffs made earlier in the pandemic, with stricter health rules in some states suppressing the virus but tempering the recovery and looser restrictions in others allowing a faster jobs rebound at the cost of subsequent disease outbreaks.But it poses a puzzle.Are the lagging states still impacted by the pandemic and just need time to complete their bounceback? Or have their economies restructured around different industries or technologies that need fewer workers? Similar questions surround the stalled labor force participation rate, still 1.7 percentage points below its pre-pandemic level, a gap of around 3 million people neither working nor looking for a job.Research by Jefferies (NYSE:JEF) and others has estimated that, even at the lowest income levels, households have perhaps two months extra cash on hand from stimulus and other payments, including ongoing tax rebates for families with children, that may let them be more selective about work. If people have left the workforce permanently, however, full employment may arrive sooner than anticipated. That has implications for the Fed, and for the Biden administration if the workers needed to staff new infrastructure or other programs become more difficult or costly to find.Job growth across industries has been uneven, too. Businesses that move goods now employ more people than before the pandemic, riding a surge in demand as the coronavirus shuttered sports stadiums, concert halls and other places where people ordinarily would have spent some of their money. Core service industries like leisure and hospitality are still nearly 10% short. (GRAPHIC: Jobs by industry – https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-FED/INDUSTRY/qmypmdoolvr/chart.png) What’s unknown is whether that evens out when spending shifts back to services, as many economists expect, or whether the occupational mix has changed for good.Likewise inflation may be running at a 30-year high because the recovery isn’t finished, and will fall as spending, work and other habits return to normal.But if something larger is in play – if a change in how inflation works has been mistaken for short-term supply chain or other pandemic disruptions – it could pose major risks.”The risk is that (Fed officials) panic and chase down inflation” with faster and higher interest rate increases that could, Grant Thornton Chief Economist Diane Swonk wrote recently, “end our relationship with inflation but at a hefty price. It could tip the economy into a recession, or worse, if those hikes reverberate across developing economies.” (GRAPHIC: Alternate inflation measures – https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-FED/INFLATION/znpnekxmdvl/chart.png) More

Jamie Dimon, the chair and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, said he was “not swayed by geopolitical winds” as he arrived in Hong Kong, becoming the first boss of a big Wall Street investment bank to visit greater China since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.Dimon’s visit coincides with a virtual meeting between US president Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping later today. The two leaders will attempt to mend relations amid concerns over Beijing’s military activity near Taiwan and its growing nuclear arsenal.“I am optimistic they will work out rational plans,” Dimon said in a meeting with the Financial Times.He added that it was “very important” to spend time in Hong Kong, which is the bank’s Asia-Pacific headquarters. “I would have come earlier . . . It is very important for me to see our people,” he said.Dimon, who the bank said was in the Chinese territory to “thank staff” for their work during the pandemic and meet regulators, is travelling on an exemption from the city’s strict quarantine policy. It was his first visit to Hong Kong in two-and-a-half years.Dimon will spend just 32 hours in Hong Kong before travelling to London later in the week.Thank you for reading FirstFT Americas — GordonFive more stories in the news1. Business calls for more action after COP26 Executives joined climate activists in expressing frustration that national governments were not more aggressive in tackling climate change, after the COP26 agreement was watered down in the final minutes.Explainer: What is in the Glasgow Climate Pact?The FT View: COP26 has achieved more than expected but less than hoped.Readers’ reaction: What do you think of the final deal agreed at COP26? Let us know at [email protected]. 2. Private equity buyers keen to carve up General Electric The decision to split GE into three companies has set the stage for a feeding frenzy among private equity buyers looking to carve the industrial conglomerate into more pieces, say people at several large private equity groups.3. Jes Staley exchanged 1,200 emails with Epstein The former Barclays chief executive exchanged 1,200 emails with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein over a four-year period, the Financial Times revealed over the weekend. Central to the probe was a cache of emails first provided to US regulators by JPMorgan, where Staley worked for more than 30 years.4. Ukraine warns of Russian military escalation Western intelligence suggests a “high probability of destabilisation” of Ukraine by Russia as soon as this winter after Moscow massed more than 90,000 troops at its border, according to Kyiv’s deputy defence minister. The recent troop movements have revived memories in the west of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.5. Argentina government on track to lose Senate majority President Alberto Fernández’s centre-left coalition was on track to lose its senate majority in midterm elections, as Argentines punished his Peronist party in the face of spiralling inflation and rising poverty.Coronavirus digest US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said controlling Covid-19 was key to taming inflation during an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation.New home prices in China fell for the second consecutive month in October, clouding the country’s economic outlook.Japan’s economy shrank sharply during the third quarter as global supply chain disruptions and a resurgence in Covid-19 cases damped spending by both consumers and businesses.Strict new curbs on the movement of unvaccinated people come into force in Austria today, while the Netherlands is imposing another nationwide lockdown.Oral antivirals are expected to reduce the burden of a potential influx of Covid-19 patients this winter.More than 1,000 FT readers — from London to Qatar — shared their concerns and hopes about returning to the office. Read what they had to say.

The day aheadEarnings WeWork releases its first set of results since last month’s long-awaited debut on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares in the lossmaking provider of office space closed at $9.18 on Friday, below their $10 offer price.EU foreign ministers meet to discuss Belarus Today’s meeting of EU foreign ministers will be more consequential than most. They are expected to approve a new legal basis for a fifth round of sanctions against Belarus as part of measures to press authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko to stop the flow of migrants to Europe’s borders.Start every week with a preview of what’s on the business agenda in the coming days. You can sign up here to receive the Week Ahead email in your inbox each Sunday.What else we’re readingChina’s nuclear build-up Over the past two decades, China has stunned the US with the relentless pace of its conventional military build-up, from fighter jets and bombers to submarines and warships. As Beijing prepares to quadruple its warhead arsenal by 2030, could its growing nuclear posture alter the balance of power in Asia?

Oldest asset class still dominates modern wealth A study found that two-thirds of net worth is stored in residential, corporate and government real estate, as well as in land. For all the talk of digitalisation, it seems that bricks and mortar are the new bricks and mortar, writes Rana Foroohar.‘There’s no spin to truth’ In an interview with the FT, the veteran Fox News anchor Chris Wallace talks about life after Trump, his relationship with the Murdochs — and why he won’t censure Tucker Carlson.How management fashions can change the world On the surface very little has changed in the world of management in the past decade. Happily, says Andrew Hill, this appearance is mistaken. The changes have, however, taken root behind the old bureaucracy, he says. Best books of 2021: Business Andrew also selects his favourite business books of the year, kicking off a week when FT writers and columnists select their best reads.‘Daddy isn’t coming back’: surviving my partner’s suicide “Horror and grief, guilt, despair, anger, regret. There are days when I feel them all simultaneously. But also shame. We talk far more openly than we used to about mental health, but we don’t talk as freely or sympathetically about severe mental illness,” writes Manuela Saragosa.

© Charlotte Ager

PodcastThis weekend on the FT Weekend podcast, Lilah Raptopoulos explores what it means to defy death with rock climber Leo Houlding. We also explore radical life extension with science writer Anjana Ahuja. More

(Reuters) – Cineworld sales touched 90% of pre-COVID levels in October, the world’s second-largest theatre operator said on Monday, driving its shares up 14% while the London-listed firm also said demand in the UK and Ireland was greater than 2019.It said revenue had grown steadily since reopening in April, driven by big-budget movies including Marvel’s “Black Widow”, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”, Bond film “No Time to Die”, and book-to-screen science-fiction “Dune”.Cineworld, which operates the Regal cinema chains, anticipates upcoming blockbusters, including the latest in “The Matrix” franchise – “The Matrix Resurrections” – to attract audiences and perform well if the pandemic does not deteriorate.Cinema operators globally are relying on highly anticipated glitzy blockbusters to help them get back on their feet after being crushed by the pandemic and further poaching from streaming services as people got locked in their homes.Many movie releases were moved to streaming services after the pandemic began, with giants Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Disney and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s Prime Video seeking to get ahead of long-lasting consumption shifts. Straight-to-streaming has been a concern for cinema operators and even movie stars whose income is sometimes tied to box office performances in distribution and acting contracts.”Our partnerships with the studios are as strong as ever and with the incredible movie slate to come, there are real grounds for optimism in our industry,” Cineworld Chief Executive Mooky Greidinger said in a statement. The company said its October revenue from the UK and Ireland jumped to 127% of 2019 levels, while the United States touched 80%.CHALLENGES AHEAD?Cineworld’s larger rival AMC last week comfortably beat estimates for quarterly revenue. However, its boss warned that there were coronavirus-related challenges ahead.Jefferies (NYSE:JEF) analysts said that Cineworld is well-placed to capitalize on people returning to cinemas, as its main markets seem keen to avoid further lockdowns. The company gets 90% of its revenue from vaccine-advanced nations U.S., UK and Israel.Shares of the company, which gets the bulk of its revenue from its Regal cinemas in the United States, were up 5% by 0805 GMT on the FTSE midcap index. As a result of the improvement in revenue and tighter control of costs, Cineworld said it generated positive cash flow in October and described it as an important milestone in its recovery.Cineworld, which has been struggling with debt of about $8.44 billion, did not give any update on a potential U.S. listing it had mooted in August to bolster finances. More