Economy

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka has postponed a round of debt restructuring talks initially expected to be held on Thursday to allow central bank and treasury officials to provide clarifications sought by the country’s creditors, its state minister of finance said. The island nation formally kicked off the talks in September after securing a preliminary $2.9 billion bailout with the International Monetary Fund, a step on a path out of the country’s worst financial crisis in a decade.But it needs to secure financing assurances from key creditors including China, Japan and India before the funds can be disbursed.”There are different concerns that different creditors want cleared so it was decided that these clarifications would be communicated first and then new dates would be set for another round of talks,” state minister Shehan Semasinghe Semasinghe told Reuters on Thursday. “The dates are yet to be decided.” Semasinghe did not provide details on the creditors’ concerns or what exactly was being discussed between them and Sri Lanka’s central bank and treasury officials.Sri Lanka had earlier set a target of getting board level IMF approval in December for the planned four-year programme. “We are focusing on financing assurances. As of now no bilateral creditor has informed us that they are not going to support us,” Semasinghe added. “We have a target and we are pushing hard to meet it in December.”Sri Lankan officials have also had talks with representatives from China EXIM Bank and China Development Bank which together hold about $4.3 billion in loans given to fund large infrastructure projects over the last 20 years. China is Sri Lanka’s largest bilateral lender.Sri Lanka has been gripped by a deep financial crisis this year caused by record-low foreign exchange reserves that has left the island of 22 million people struggling to pay for essential imports including fuel, food, cooking gas and medicine. More

Ukraine says negotiators from Kyiv and Moscow have agreed to prolong a UN and Turkish-brokered Black Sea grain export agreement, a crucial step to alleviating a global food crisis triggered by the conflict.“The initiative for safe transportation of agricultural products across the Black Sea has been extended for another 120 days,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, said on Thursday. “This decision was just taken in Istanbul. The UN and Turkey remained guarantors of the initiative,” he added.The agreement was initially brokered in July by the UN and Ankara to end Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s ports following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February. Ukraine is a leading exporter of grain and other agricultural products. Food security experts have warned that shortages triggered by the war will lead to further price rises, with serious consequences for poorer countries already hit hard by the impact of climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the deal took effect on August 1 “Ukraine has exported more than 11mn tonnes of agricultural products to 38 countries around the world”, Kubrakov said. “This is a significant amount, but not enough. The world market cannot replace Ukrainian agricultural products in the near future. At the same time, it is possible to increase the amount of our food for the world,” he added.Grain prices fell after the deal was extended. Benchmark wheat futures traded in Chicago declined 3 per cent to $7.94 a bushel while corn dropped 1.5 per cent to $6.56 a bushel.Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the agreement in a tweet on Thursday. Kubrakov said Ukraine was still pushing for the agreement to be extended for at least a year and for it to include ports in the Mykolayiv region in addition to the three ports in Odesa province that were part of the deal.Grain Deal will be prolonged for 120 days. 🇺🇦 together with @antonioguterres and @RTErdogan made key decision in the global fight against the food crisis. Waiting for official announcement from partners – 🇹🇷 and 🇺🇳.— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 17, 2022
UN secretary-general António Guterres said: “I welcome the agreement by all parties to continue the Black Sea Grain Initiative to facilitate the safe navigation of export of grain, foodstuffs and fertilisers from Ukraine.”The announcements came as Russia launched the latest barrage of missile and “kamikaze” drone strikes on electricity infrastructure across Ukraine, in a bid to cripple the country’s power supply as winter nears.Denys Shmyhal, Ukraine’s prime minister, said at an investment conference in Kyiv that the strikes had also targeted natural gas production facilities, without identifying the locations.

In a separate agreement with Russia, the UN has begun shipping fertiliser to African nations that has been stuck in European ports since the start of the war. The UN worked with the US, UK and EU to create a general licence to assure private companies that there was a “blanket exemption” from sanctions for Russian food and fertiliser, and to encourage insurers to cover Russian-flagged vessels, a UN source said. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had said western sanctions had hampered the country’s agricultural sales, even though Moscow had grown its export volumes since the war began. The sanctions do not directly target Russia’s exports but have created additional barriers for payments, shipping and insurance that Moscow has pushed the UN to resolve.“There are statements from the US, UK and EU about carve-outs in the sanctions regime for Russian exporters of grain and fertiliser. This important progress and this work will be finalised when all the direct and indirect obstacles are completely removed,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, according to Interfax.Ukraine and Russia still need to agree to reopen a pipeline for ammonia that travels through Ukraine, the UN source said. Ammonia, made from natural gas, is a feedstock for nitrogen fertiliser, but soaring gas prices have seen European fertiliser makers slash production by 70 per cent this year.Small farmers in poorer nations have been especially hard hit by the “fertiliser crunch” as prices more than doubled since 2019, the source said, raising fears they will be unable to plant enough food for the next harvest. More

LONDON (Reuters) -British finance minister Jeremy Hunt announced a string of tax increases and tighter public spending in a tough budget plan on Thursday that he said was needed after the blow dealt to the country’s fiscal reputation by former prime minister Liz Truss.Hunt told parliament that the economy was already in recession and was forecast to shrink next year but there was no way to avoid painful fiscal medicine to ensure Britain could build on the recent restoration of calm in financial markets.”Credibility cannot be taken for granted and yesterday’s inflation figures show we must continue a relentless fight to bring it down, including an important commitment to rebuild the public finances,” he said.Hunt announced changes to tax rules that will mean more people pay basic income tax, a lower threshold for paying the top rate of income tax, and a cut in tax-free allowances for earnings from dividends.He froze until 2028 a threshold at which employers must start to pay social security contributions, meaning companies will have to pay more.A levy on the profits of energy companies would be increased to 35% from 25% from Jan. 1 until 2028, and a new temporary 45% tax would be imposed on electricity generators, to raise a total of 14 billion pounds next year, Hunt said.The belt-tightening comes against the backdrop of a weak outlook for the economy.Gross domestic product is now expected to contract by 1.4% next year compared with a projection for growth of 1.8% in the previous outlook published in March by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).Since then, Britain’s economy has come under strain from an inflation rate now above 11%, a slowing global economy and a bout of severe financial market volatility during Truss’s brief term as prime minister.Hunt said the OBR forecasts laid out “starkly the impact of global headwinds on the UK economy”.The OBR forecast GDP would grow by 1.3% in 2024 and by 2.6% in 2025, Hunt said, compared with its previous forecasts for growth of 2.1% and 1.8% respectively.He said the OBR saw inflation at 9.1% in 2022, up from its March forecast of 7.4%, and at 7.4% next year, up from a previously forecast 4.0%.Hunt and Sunak have said they will restore investor confidence in Britain after Truss’s failed experiment with unfunded tax cuts. She quit after just 50 days in Downing Street when her policies sent the pound to an all-time low against the U.S. dollar, threatened chaos in the housing market and forced the Bank of England to intervene to prop up the bond markets. Hunt said the OBR judged that Britain – where high inflation is creating a cost-of-living crisis – is already in recession.It is the only Group of Seven economy yet to recover its pre-pandemic size, having previously suffered a decade of near-stagnant income growth.Hunt had warned in the days leading up to Thursday’s announcement that he could only slow a rise in borrowing costs by showing investors that Britain’s 2.45 trillion-pound ($2.91 trillion) debt mountain will start to fall as a share of GDP.Thursday’s forecasts by the OBR showed that target would be met in the 2027/28 financial year.Critics have warned against a return to the kind of tight spending controls pursued by the ruling Conservative Party for much of the past 12 years, saying it would hurt already stretched public services and the lives of millions of households, deepening the expected recession in the process. More

Barely eight weeks since the disastrous “mini” Budget, chancellor Jeremy Hunt has delivered a package of tax rises and spending cuts designed to repair Britain’s battered public finances — but it comes at a cost to the nation’s personal finances.Promising to protect the vulnerable and concentrate tax rises on those with the broadest shoulders, the chancellor warned the UK economy had already entered recession, and that things would get worse before they improved. Here is a summary of the key measures likely to affect your own personal finances: Tax Around a quarter of a million taxpayers with an income above £125,140 will pay the 45p top rate of tax from next April, after Hunt lowered the threshold from its existing level of £150,000. This means people with an income above £150,000 will pay an extra £1,243 in income tax per year. “We are asking more from those who have more,” the chancellor said. He also extended the freeze in other income tax and national insurance thresholds for a further two years until 2028, which is expected to raise tens of billions of pounds in “stealth taxes” as inflation pushes up workers’ pay. Rather than rise in line with inflation, the tax-free personal allowance will remain at £12,570 and the higher-rate threshold at £50,270 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland has different tax thresholds).The freeze is expected to drag about 3mn people into paying higher rates of income tax by 2026, according to analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The freeze to the inheritance tax “nil-rate band” will also be extended from 2025-26 to 2027-28, in move that could raise at least half a billion pounds for the Treasury.From April 2025, electric vehicles will no longer be exempt from vehicle excise duty. Investments The chancellor announced plans to substantially reduce tax-free allowances that benefit investors. Capital gains tax allowances will be pared, with the annual tax-free allowance slashed from £12,300 to £6,000 from next April, halving again to just £3,000 from April 2024. The tax free dividend allowance will be halved from £2,000 to £1,000 from next April, and halved to just £500 from April 2024. This will hit investors who hold income-paying shares outside tax wrappers like Isas and pensions, as well as costing limited company directors who are remunerated through dividends. PensionsThe triple-lock on the state pension was maintained, meaning a 10.1 per cent boost for pensioners next April.The full annual amount of the new state pension will rise above £10,000 for the first time next year, and will be worth over £200 per week.Pension credit, a benefit received by the poorest pensioners, will also be uprated by 10.1 per cent. However, the chancellor said a review into the current level of the state pension age would be published in “early 2023”.

The energy cap will rise to £3,000 a year from next April for most UK households © Getty Images/iStockphoto

Cost of living payments From next April, the current package of help measures with energy bills will be more targeted at the lowest-earning households. Currently, the energy price guarantee caps energy bills for the average home at £2,500 per year. From next April, this cap will rise to £3,000, and remain at this level for 12 months. The £400 support package received by all UK households will not be repeated, but households on means tested benefits will receive a cost of living payment worth £900, pensioner households will receive £300 and those with disabilities £150. The measures will be partially funded by higher windfall taxes on energy companies. The chancellor confirmed that both means-tested benefits and the national living wage would also rise by 10.1 per cent next April. Property There were no changes to stamp duty — one of the few “mini” Budget measures to have survived intact. However, the chancellor said these measures will only remain in place until March 31 2025.Former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng doubled the threshold at which stamp duty would begin to apply in England and Northern Ireland to £250,000.First-time buyers were also exempted from paying the tax on the first £425,000 of their purchase, up from £300,000.Hunt said that change would now be temporary, “creating an incentive to support the housing market and the jobs associated with it by boosting transactions during the period the economy most needs it”.Additional reporting by George Hammond More

Investing.com — The U.K. government announced a £55 billion (£1 = $1.1845) budget package on Thursday, in an effort to fill a yawning gap in public finances created by the country’s slide into recession. Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said the measures will be split roughly evenly between tax increases and spending cuts. The new budget represents a desperate attempt to restore the U.K.’s credibility, both with the public and with global financial markets, after a chaotic interlude during the brief tenure of Liz Truss, who had tried to revive growth with a massive suite of unfunded tax cuts in her brief stint as Prime Minister. Hunt acknowledged that the measures tread a fine line between guaranteeing sound money and squeezing the life out of the economy with higher taxes. The consolidation package “means that inflation and interest rates end significantly lower” over a five-year timeframe than would otherwise have been the case, Hunt said, citing new forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility.However, they will not spare the U.K. a sharp recession and a steep fall in household incomes, not least because the government will pare back its ‘Energy Price Guarantee’ from April, allowing average household energy bills to rise by another £500 to £3,000.The OBR’s forecasts suggest U.K. GDP will contract by 1.4% next year, under the influence of the after-effects of the pandemic and what Hunt called “a made-in-Russia energy crisis”, before returning to growth in 2024. Unemployment, meanwhile, is set to rise to 4.9% of the workforce from under 4% currently. “Britain’s recession likely will be the deepest among the major advanced economies, given that no other country has moved so soon to raise taxes and withdraw energy price support,” Pantheon Macroeconomics’ Samuel Tombs wrote in a note to clients. The pound fell initially on the news before recovering to $1.1845 by 06:53 ET (11:53 GMT). U.K. government bonds underperformed the rest of Europe, with yields rising by 8 basis points at the short end of the yield curve. Longer-dated yields were largely unchanged, however, suggesting that Hunt’s assurances on the need to bring inflation down had been broadly accepted by markets. While Hunt spoke of “difficult decisions”, he confirmed that the so-called ‘triple lock’ on pension spending would remain intact. He also said the national living wage will rise by over 9% next year to offset this year’s inflation shock, while the cap on benefits will also rise in parallel. Hunt also announced an extra £3.3B in spending for the National Health Service in each of the next two years, which he said would ensure the NHS can fulfill its essential duties.He also put off committing to higher defense spending, saying that the government would need to complete an internal review of the U.K.’s defense priorities first. He stressed that defense spending will remain above 2% of GDP, meeting the guideline for NATO countries. Torsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation think-tank, tweeted that the budget largely put off true consolidation until after the next election, which is due in 2024.As indicated by leaked reports earlier in the week, the package included cuts to the threshold for the top rate of personal income tax, and to the tax-free allowance on dividend income and capital gains tax. They also included a new 45% windfall tax on the excess profits of electricity generators. Shares in SSE (LON:SSE) and Drax (LON:DRX) had fallen over 3% in response, while Centrica (LON:CNA) stock fell 1.1%.The government will also increase the levy on windfall profits in the oil and gas sector, to 35% from 25%, and extend it through April 2028. Shares in BP (LON:BP) and Shell (LON:RDSa) shrugged off the news, having already discounted the move. Equally, Hunt confirmed that the government will go ahead with its plans to back the construction of a new nuclear power plant at Sizewell, dispelling rumors that the project would be sacrificed as part of a scramble for savings.  More

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Bank of Israel is expected to raise short-term interest rates for a sixth straight time next week, a Reuters poll shows, although analysts are split over the size of the rise given the need to balance high inflation with slowing economic growth.Of 15 economists polled by Reuters, 9 forecast that the monetary policy committee (MPC) will raise the benchmark rate to 3.25%, its highest level since September 2011, from 2.75% when its decision is announced on Monday.Six others, who said the central bank has been more aggressive than expected at every meeting, said they anticipated a 0.75 percentage point increase to 3.5%.In the rate hike cycle that followed the 2008 financial crisis, the key rate peaked at 3.25% before moving back to 0.1% in 2015 where it largely stayed until this year.In early October, the central bank had raised its rate by three-quarters of a point for a second straight meeting, citing its determination to move inflation back to a 1-3% annual target by “front loading” rate increases.Israel’s inflation reached a 14-year high of 5.2% in July and stood at 5.1% in October, high for the country but below that in the United States and Europe.Economic growth in the third quarter slowed to a 2.1% annualised rate from the prior three months, down from 7.3% growth in the second quarter.The central bank expects 6% growth in 2022 and 3% next year — a level economists believe is ambitious given the aggressive rate hike cycle since April.”It can be 0.5 or 0.75 basis points. The chances are equal,” said Ofer Klein, head of economics and research at Harel Insurance and Finance.”From the one side inflation is still high, from the other the economy has started to cool,” added Alex Zabezhinsky, chief economist at the Meitav Dash brokerage.At best, economists expect a soft landing. At worst they anticipate stagflation where inflation remains high while the economy is stagnant or grows slowly.Those who expect a half-point rise believe it addresses inflation, while taking into account economic uncertainty.Last month, Governor Amir Yaron told Reuters he saw rates peaking at “3 plus percent” in a signal the tightening cycle was close to running its course, and analysts believed 3.5% could be the peak. Now, economists see a 4% ceiling.”The dataprints this week appear to us sufficient to revise the terminal rate forecast back up to 4%,” said Citi economist Michel Nies, adding: “We see the balance 55/45 in favour of a 75 basis points hike (on Monday)”.”The Bank of Israel’s tendency this year has been to surprise to the upside,” Nies said. More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Let the sticker shock begin: The upcoming U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, a time when families and friends typically celebrate with groaning sideboards, a stuffed turkey, and a more-is-better-than-less attitude, is going to cost roughly 20% more than last year, according to estimates compiled by the American Farm Bureau Federation in an annual survey of grocery prices.Blame it on the weather, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or corporations’ drive to maximize profits, all of which have had a hand in rising food prices, but this year’s jump is the largest since the Farm Bureau’s first Thanksgiving dinner cost survey in 1986.Coupled with last year’s 14% increase, which was the second-largest, the price of a “classic” meal of turkey, stuffing, green peas, sweet potatoes, cranberries, rolls and pumpkin pie for 10 people has risen more than a third since 2020, at the outset of the worst U.S. inflation surge in 40 years, from $46.90 to $64.05.(Graphic: Thanksgiving inflation- https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ECONOMY/INFLATION/byvrljlwqve/chart.png)”That kind of increase we recognize is a burden on some families, no question about that,” said Roger Cryan, the Farm Bureau’s chief economist, though he noted that discounting as the holiday approaches may allow consumers to lower the bill.U.S. consumer prices rose 7.7% on an annual basis in October and had been increasing by as much as 9.1% earlier this year, triggering a Federal Reserve effort to tame price pressures with aggressive interest rate increases. Food prices, particularly items bought for home consumption, have risen even faster, hitting a 13.5% annual rate in August and still rising 12.4% annually last month, a shock to one part of the household budget where prices had dependably increased less than incomes.As food prices have risen, a U.S Census survey showed the share of households reporting food scarcity rising from 7.8% in August 2021 to 11.4% as of early October. “If you’re in the grocery store right now, you see it, in any grocery store you go to, people making tradeoffs,” San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said last week. “How many people can they invite? What are they going to serve? Are they going to trade down? Are we having a different kind of meal? Are we not having as many options?” (Graphic: Food prices vs. earnings -https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ECONOMY/INFLATION/gkplwgwnevb/chart.png)(Graphic: Income share spent on food – https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ECONOMY/INFLATION/zdpxdodblpx/chart.png)SKIP THE STUFFING?As with other goods and services, there is a broad set of forces behind the Thanksgiving food spike. An outbreak of avian flu cut turkey flocks, and while supply is adequate the Farm Bureau said the harvest of smaller birds along with higher feed prices has raised the cost of that Thanksgiving centerpiece by 21%, to an average $1.81 per pound in the 224 stores where surveyors checked prices during the Oct. 18-31 period.That accounted for about half of the $10.74 increase in the full price of the classic meal this year. The largest percentage rise was for packaged stuffing, up 69% to $3.88, while a 1-pound tray of carrots and celery was up just 8%, to $0.88, and the price of cranberries fell 14%, to $2.57 for a 12-ounce bag.(Graphic: Higher-priced holidays -https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-FED/INFLATION/znpnbdyzzpl/chart.png)For food items generally, key inputs like fuel and fertilizer prices have skyrocketed, said Wendiam Sawadgo, an agricultural economics professor at Auburn University, with some fruit farmers in Alabama, for example, now spending $1,000 an acre on fertilizer compared to around $600 in 2018.”A big chunk was Ukraine and Europe not having fertilizer production for a good while. That was a big problem,” he said.Grocery store margins also rose during the COVID-19 pandemic. Net profit after taxes hit 3% in 2020 and 2.9% in 2021, compared with an average of around 1.2% from 2015 through 2019, according to data from the Food Industry Association. Those were the highest margins the association has seen in reports dating back to 1984.Andy Harig, a vice president at the association, said high demand for food at home early in the pandemic, when restaurants were closed or in-person dining was considered risky, gave food retailers leverage to boost profits. He said consumers also bought more higher-margin products like seafood during the crisis, while changes in shopping – including the rise in food delivery – let stores trim labor costs.But he also said the net profit figure is expected to fall back to the long-run industry average of between 1% and 2%.”It’s a penny industry,” Harig said. With restaurants recovering and wages rising, margins are likely already declining.(Graphic: Grocery store chain net profits after taxes – https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ECONOMY/INFLATION/zjpqjkqwovx/chart.png)LAST-MINUTE BARGAINS Still, the rising cost of necessities has been top of mind for U.S. officials, with consumer sentiment near a low point after a year when average gas prices reached $5 a gallon. Thanksgiving-related travel this year may at least be cheaper than it was, with airline and fuel prices having declined recently.And there may be some respite on the food front as well. Walmart (NYSE:WMT) Inc, for example, said earlier this month that it would leave prices for Thanksgiving staples unchanged from last year and keep them in effect through Christmas, including turkey for under $1 a pound.Discounted turkey prices often lure consumers to grocery stores and supermarkets, and bargains intensify as the holiday approaches. The Farm Bureau noted that frozen turkey prices had fallen to 95 cents a pound as of this week.Auburn’s Sawadgo said that shopping for alternatives can also bring down the cost, with one of his personal favorites, collard greens, selling right now at $1.14 a pound, down 3 cents from last year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.Sawadgo recently priced the goods for a Thanksgiving dinner for six at about $70.76, up 19% from $59.50 for the same basket last year. “If you are not someone who shops the ads, this might be the year to do that,” he said. (Additinal reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Dan Burns and Paul Simao) More

Investing.com — There’s a big data dump heading your way, with U.S. housing starts, jobless claims, and the Philly Fed survey all due at 08:30 ET (13:30 GMT). Various Federal Reserve officials line up to say their piece about the outlook for interest rates in the hours following. Grain prices fell after Russia and Ukraine renewed their deal on safe passage for Ukrainian exports for another 120 days, while comments from the Pentagon on Wednesday have hit oil prices, by raising speculation that the U.S. may pressure Ukraine into accepting peace talks. Stocks are expected to open with losses after another weak update from fallen angel NVIDIA. And the U.K. gets the chance to tell the bond markets how sorry it is for that regrettable flirtation with fiscal insanity in September. Here’s what you need to know in financial markets on Wednesday, 17th November.1. U.S. data dump and Fed speakers galore The U.S. releases weekly jobless claims and housing starts data and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s monthly business survey into a market that was forced to reassess its recent rally on Wednesday by a stronger-than-expected retail sales report for October. Late on Wednesday, Federal Reserve Governor Chris Waller added his voice to others suggesting that a cut of only 50 basis points at the Fed’s next meeting would be acceptable, given broadening signs that inflation may have peaked. Even so, other comments from San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, hinting at a ‘terminal’ Fed Funds rate of over 5%, have underlined that the Fed’s tightening cycle is far from over.Fed governors Michelle Bowman and Philip Jefferson will speak later, along with Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester.2. Grain deal renewal pushes wheat to 2-month lowGlobal wheat prices fell to their lowest in over two months after Russia and Ukraine agreed to extend the deal safeguarding exports of foodstuffs from Ukrainian ports for another 120 days.The announcement dispelled fears that Russia may walk away from the deal after making disgruntled noises about it in the wake of a Ukrainian attack on the Kerch strait bridge last month. Doubts about the deal had also strengthened after a Ukrainian air defense missile’s explosion in Poland briefly threatened to escalate the war in Ukraine.The deal does not appear to include guarantees for the export of Russian ammonia from the port of Odesa, something that Moscow had been pressing for. That may keep the pressure on global ammonia prices and restrict global supplies of fertilizer next year, putting longer-term upward pressure on crop prices.3. Stocks set for lower open; NVIDIA disappoints again, while Tencent sparks China routU.S. stock markets are set to open lower again after a strong retail sales report for October cast doubt on the narrative that weakening demand will force the Fed into an early end to rate hikes.The mood – especially in tech – isn’t being helped by another weak set of figures from NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), which showed how the twin pandemic-era bubbles in video gaming and cryptocurrency mining have popped. Also weighing on sentiment is a selloff in Chinese technology stocks, driven by Tencent’s (HK:0700) announcement on Wednesday that it will unload its stake in Meituan (HK:3690) in a move that was interpreted as a signal that its battles with Beijing’s regulators aren’t over yet.By 06:10 ET, Dow Jones futures were down 148 points, or 0.5%, while S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures were down in parallel. The Nasdaq had lost 1.5%, while the Dow fell 0.1%, and S&P fell 0.8% on Wednesday.Most of the day’s U.S. earnings action comes after the bell, with reports from Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT), Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW), Ross Stores (NASDAQ:ROST), and Gap (NYSE:GPS).4. U.K. to reveal new fiscal plansThe U.K. government will release its tax and spending plans for the next year, desperately trying to undo the damage done by Liz Truss’s reckless tax cut gamble.While bond markets have recovered since Truss was replaced as Prime Minister by Rishi Sunak, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey told parliament on Wednesday that it will take time for the U.K. to repair its reputation for economic competence. Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt is expected to announce a significant tightening of fiscal policy, split 60/40 between spending cuts and tax increases, in order to put public debt back on a downward trajectory in the medium term. Among the various pitfalls he’ll have to negotiate are massive backlogs in the National Health Service, restive public sector unions, and the rising cost of servicing the U.K.’s inflation-linked debt.5. Oil down on China inventories report, Milley commentsCrude oil prices tested a three-week low amid signs that China is still buying more oil than its economy actually needs at the moment, and on hopes that this week’s events in Ukraine may yet bring about an end to hostilities.Mark Milley, head of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, had told a press conference that an outright military victory for Ukraine is not likely in the near term, stoking speculation of pressure behind the scenes on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to moderate the conditions he has set for peace talks with Russia.By 06:20 ET, U.S. crude futures were down 1.6% at $84.20 a barrel, while Brent futures were down 1.2% at $91.75 a barrel. More