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    Lebanon placed on global money-laundering ‘grey list’

    $75 per monthComplete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders. Pay a year upfront and save 20%.What’s included Global news & analysisExpert opinionFT App on Android & iOSFT Edit appFirstFT: the day’s biggest stories20+ curated newslettersFollow topics & set alerts with myFTFT Videos & Podcasts20 monthly gift articles to shareLex: FT’s flagship investment column15+ Premium newsletters by leading expertsFT Digital Edition: our digitised print edition More

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    Russia Raises Interest Rate to 21 Percent, Its Highest in Decades

    Military spending and recruitment are causing the country’s economy to overheat, leaving regulators in a struggle to rein in rising prices.Russia’s central bank raised the cost of borrowing in the country to its highest level in more than two decades on Friday in an effort to slow inflation that is being fueled by record military spending and recruitment.The central bank raised Russia’s benchmark interest rate to 21 percent during its regular monetary policy meeting. That makes borrowing in the country even more expensive than at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when the central bank sharply increased interest rates to calm the economy. The effective cost of borrowing in Russia is now the highest since 2003.It was the third increase in a row, and Elvira Nabiullina, the central bank’s president, said that interest rates could rise further later this year.“We don’t see inflationary pressures slowing down,” Ms. Nabiullina, who maintains some policy independence from the Kremlin, told reporters after announcing the new rate.The increase underscores the challenges that Ms. Nabiullina faces as she tries to cool inflation, which she forecasts will average 8.8 percent this year. At that level, prices are rising more than twice as quickly as the central bank considers healthy for the Russian economy.Ms. Nabiullina implicitly blamed Russia’s war in Ukraine for the continued price increases. She said the Kremlin’s decision to raise spending by $15.5 billion next year, mostly to cover war-related costs, was overheating the economy and feeding inflation.In particular, she said, high government spending blunts the central bank’s main tool for controlling inflation — setting interest rates. This is because companies that receive military contracts are willing to take out loans at any cost to meet production deadlines.Labor shortages resulting from military recruitment during the war have also fueled inflation.The war has left hundreds of thousands of Russian men dead or seriously injured, according to Western intelligence agencies. Hundreds of thousands more have left the country to avoid being called up. And hundreds of thousands of others have joined the army to benefit from ever-rising payouts, leaving the civilian economy deprived of workers.“Spare hands no longer exist in the economy,” Ms. Nabiullina said, which leaves companies competing for workers by offering them higher wages.In turn, those rising wages spur consumer spending, further contributing to inflation.Military spending has caused a boom in the Russian economy: The International Monetary Fund said this week that Russia’s economy would grow 3.6 percent this year, 0.4 percentage points higher than its previous forecast. But economists say that the situation is breaking the balance between supply and demand, with potential long-term consequences for the country’s financial stability.Yet the Kremlin is showing no signs of letting up on war spending.“Our main priority are the goals of the special military operation,” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told RBC, a business newspaper, this week, referring to the war in Ukraine. “We will spend as much money as we need on the battlefield, on the victory.”Oleg Matsnev More

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    EU races to prepare for a Trump win

    $75 per monthComplete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders. Pay a year upfront and save 20%.What’s included Global news & analysisExpert opinionFT App on Android & iOSFT Edit appFirstFT: the day’s biggest stories20+ curated newslettersFollow topics & set alerts with myFTFT Videos & Podcasts20 monthly gift articles to shareLex: FT’s flagship investment column15+ Premium newsletters by leading expertsFT Digital Edition: our digitised print edition More

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    Russia’s Nabiullina on raising rates to 21%

    Nabiullina spoke in Russian. The quotes below were translated into English by Reuters.NABIULLINA ON THE RATE DECISION”We considered three options today: to raise the rate to 20%, to 21% and above 21%. The option of holding the rate was not considered, no one suggested it, but we discussed the options of raising the rate to 20% and 21%.”The possibility of raising the rate with the same steps in the next (meeting) will depend on the data that we’ll receive: data on the development of the economy, inflation, inflation expectations, the rate of credit growth in general, but we allow for the possibility of an additional rate increase in December.”NABIULLINA ON THE MAIN PRO-INFLATIONARY FACTORS”The main factor is that we will continue to have an imbalance of supply and demand. This may be factors related to the budget, we always say that budget changes are an important factor that we take into account. It will also depend on the rate at which loans will grow, and loans in general…. An important factor is inflation expectations, which, unfortunately, are still high and have even increased.”NABIULLINA ON THE WEAKENING OF THE EXCHANGE RATE”We also take this into account, indeed, over the last few months there has been some weakening…we do not change the assessment of the carry-over effect – a 10% change in the exchange rate is about 0.5 times the carry-over into inflation.””But if we look at longer trends in the exchange rate, we have the exchange rate at about the same level as it was a year ago. But it has been volatile during the course of the year, and we take all this into account.”NABIULLINA ON THE INFLATIONARY TARGET”By the end of the year, current price growth will be near 4%…we will reach the target in 2026, in the first half of 2026.”NABIULLINA ON THE DANGERS OF SHOCK RATE INCREASES”We can’t push the rate higher now in order to bring it back to the target even faster…Yes, we can achieve a halt in inflation and even provoke deflation with a prohibitive level of the rate. But the result will not be a return of the economy to sustainable, balanced growth, but an excessive cooling of demand with excessive volatility in all parameters, in interest rates, in production, in employment, and a strong deviation of inflation downward from the target.”And such excessive volatility will have negative consequences for economic development, so we have no need for this kind of shock increase.”*NABIULLINA ON THE TIMING OF A RATE CUT”When inflation starts to fall steadily, and we see it falling in line with our forecast, this may indeed be a signal for the start of a rate cut. When that will happen, we can’t say right now.”*NABIULLINA ON THE INFLUENCE OF GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT AND CORPORATE LENDING”We have seen that mortgage issuance in recent times was mainly under preferential programs – this has had a serious impact. I am referring to non-recourse concessionary mortgages. For corporate loans, the concessionary programs themselves are much smaller.””But the company’s inclination, let’s say, the company’s appetite to take loans depends not only on incentives, subsidies, interest rates, but also on government contracts, i.e. when there are government contracts that are not short, but long, companies are certainly more willing to take loans at high rates, but it is probably impossible to quantify this share.”*ZABOTKIN ON CORPORATE CREDIT”What’s important to realize is that it doesn’t matter whether corporate credit is growing in the purely market part of the economy or because companies are borrowing in order to operate to meet government demand. It’s the overall level of demand in the economy to which they are responding that matters.” More

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    Futures point to higher open as yields ease, focus turns to megacaps

    (Reuters) -U.S. stock indexes were set to open slightly higher on Friday as Treasury yields eased and investors looked ahead to quarterly results from Wall Street’s biggest companies.The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dipped to 4.2% after rising as high as 4.26% earlier in the week.The three major stock indexes, however, looked set to snap their six-week winning streak, with equities unsettled by the rapid rise in yields as rate cut bets unraveled on expectations of a stronger economic outlook.”The upward move in yields has paused for a bit, allowing the stock market to catch its breath and focus on company earnings, which by and large have been pretty good,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird.Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s shares dipped 1.5% in premarket trading, following a nearly 22% surge in the previous session, as investors cheered the EV-maker’s strong sales forecast.Gains in the stock helped the S&P 500 register its first daily advance of the week.The week starting Oct. 28, the final stretch before the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election, promises to be crucial for Wall Street, marked by results from megacap tech firms including Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) , Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) as well as the release of nonfarm payrolls data.Shares of Apple dipped 0.6% on a brokerage downgrade and after data showed a decline in iPhone sales in China. Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) rose 0.8%, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) was up 0.7% and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) gained 0.4%.Dow E-minis were up 87 points, or 0.2%, U.S. S&P 500 E-minis were up 16.5 points, or 0.28% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 74 points, or 0.36%.Capri Holdings (NYSE:CPRI) slumped 47.6% after a U.S. judge blocked a pending merger between the company and handbag maker Tapestry (NYSE:TPR). Shares of Tapestry rose 14.6%.Regional lender New York Community Bancorp (NYSE:NYCB) dropped 11% after reporting its fourth straight quarter of loss, primarily due to its commercial real estate loans.Memory-chip-maker Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC)’s shares leapt 12% after it topped quarterly profit estimates on Thursday, while health insurer Centene (NYSE:CNC) advanced 12.2% after beating estimates for third-quarter profit.A mixed set of earnings across sectors and continued uncertainty around the U.S. election have also made investors cautious, though markets have started pricing in a second Donald Trump administration in recent weeks.”We’re so close to the election that it does feel like markets are in a bit of a holding pattern,” Mayfield said.Data showed September Durable Goods orders slipped 0.8%, less than the 1% forecast.The University of Michigan’s final Consumer Sentiment index is still on deck, while the Boston Fed’s Susan Collins is scheduled to speak on the day. [FED/DIARY]Investors are still pricing in another 25-basis-point rate cut at the Fed’s November meeting. They expect about two rate cuts by the end of the year, according to LSEG data. More

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    Hurricane Milton and the Boeing strike likely lowered payrolls by about 50k; BofA

    Per their estimates, these events likely reduced payrolls by about 50,000 positions.“Note that Governor Waller pointed to a larger drag of ~100k in recent comments,” BofA economists led by Aditya Bhave said in a Friday note. “The hurricane also likely lowered hours worked and, as a result, raised average hourly earnings growth.”“Meanwhile, the unemployment rate should move back up to 4.2%, partly due in part to hurricane distortions,” they added.BofA projects a 0.3% rise in nominal personal income for September, supported by job and wage growth, though partially offset by fewer hours worked.They expect nominal and real spending will climb by 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively, while the saving rate is expected to dip slightly to 4.7%.Core PCE inflation is forecasted to register at 0.27% month-over-month, with the annual rate easing by a tenth to 2.6%.“Although the y/y rate should fall a tenth to 2.6%, this wouldn’t be an ideal print for the Fed and would likely concern the hawks. But we look for softer figures in 4Q,” economists noted.Alongside the nonfarm payrolls data, the ISM manufacturing PMI will also be significant, with expectations of an increase from 47.2 to 47.6 in October.With the Fed shifting its focus more toward the jobs market than inflation, weaker payroll numbers could push the outlook back toward a more dovish stance. More

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    World Bank gears up to launch debut debt-for-development swap, treasurer says

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The World Bank will launch its first ever debt-for-development swap within weeks, its Vice President and Treasurer Jorge Familiar told Reuters, as the Washington-based lender expands its toolkit to help economies facing liquidity challenges.World Bank President Ajay Banga announced in the run-up to the IMF and World Bank annual meetings underway in Washington that the lender was working with several countries on potential ways to re-profile debt to reduce servicing costs and help governments funnel funds into development, life and education projects. “We are very close,” Familiar said on the sidelines of the annual meetings, declining to say which countries would benefit from the operation. Debt swaps have become increasingly popular in recent years, especially those where funds saved are used for environmental projects, so-called debt-for-nature swaps. They generate those savings by buying up existing bonds or loans of a country which are then replaced with cheaper debt, usually with the help of a development bank. While other development banks, such as the Inter-American Development Bank, have started getting involved in such transactions, the World Bank has so far stayed on the sidelines. Familiar said the initiative was aimed at countries that faced a liquidity rather than a solvency crisis, and that had taken a series of measures towards debt sustainability but were still facing challenges. “It can certainly be debt-for-nature, but it can also be debt-for-social-development, debt-for-education, debt for a series of relevant topics and relevant issues related to development,” he said. The World Bank role is two-fold – facilitating raising financing at lower costs through guarantees, for example, but also keeping tabs on how the funds are being used.”We will have an operation with World Bank supervision that will ensure that the savings are also going to that sector and are being used in the way intended,” he said. More

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    US core capital goods orders beat expectations in September

    Non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending plans, jumped 0.5% last month after an unrevised 0.3% gain in August, the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau said on Friday.Economists polled by Reuters had forecast these so-called core capital goods orders edging up 0.1% after a previously reported 0.3% rise in August. Core capital goods shipments fell 0.3% after dipping 0.1% in the prior month.Higher borrowing costs have been a constraint on business investment, though a loosening of financial conditions as the Federal Reserve prepared to cut interest rates boosted spending on equipment in the second quarter.Non-defense capital goods orders dropped 4.5% after declining 4.4% in August. Shipments of these goods dropped 3.6% after falling 2.0% in the prior month. These shipments go into the calculation of the business spending on equipment component in the gross domestic product report. Business investment in equipment rose at a brisk 9.8% annualized rate in the second quarter, contributing to the economy’s 3.0% growth pace.Growth estimates for the July-September quarter are currently as high as a 3.4% rate. The government will publish its advance estimate of third-quarter GDP next week. More