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Banks and building societies will cut the costs of UK fixed-rate mortgages after financial markets pared back their expectations of future rises in the Bank of England’s main interest rate, brokers and lenders have predicted. Mortgage brokers said the current high costs of fixed rates were set when markets had expected aggressive future rises in

Elon Musk has drawn up plans to fire as much as half of Twitter’s 7,500-strong workforce, according to people familiar with the matter, in a major cost-cutting overhaul that could come by the end of the week. The billionaire is looking to cut around 3,700 jobs at Twitter after his $44bn buyout of the social

Israel’s former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in pole position to emerge victorious from Tuesday’s parliamentary elections, according to exit polls that put his rightwing bloc on course for a razor-thin majority. Polls by Israel’s three main television channels, released after voting closed, forecast that a bloc combining Netanyahu’s Likud party, the extreme-right Religious Zionism

Banks that lent $12.7bn to Elon Musk for his $44bn Twitter takeover are preparing to hold the debt until early next year as they wait for the billionaire to unveil a clearer business plan they can market to investors, according to three people with knowledge of the plans. Barring an unexpected rally in credit markets

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva claimed a nail-biting victory in Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday, defeating incumbent rightwing leader Jair Bolsonaro by less than two percentage points and setting the stage for a return to leftwing governance in Latin America’s largest nation. The tight result tops off a dramatic comeback for the 77-year-old opposition leader,

Moscow has suspended its participation in a UN-backed deal with Kyiv that unblocked the movement of Ukrainian grain out of its southern ports, threatening to deepen the global food crisis. Russia linked its decision to pull out of the deal to an attack on Saturday on ships in the port of Sevastopol in the Crimean

Elon Musk has joined the elite club of social media barons after clinching a $44bn takeover of Twitter in the same week that investors wiped hundreds of billions of dollars from Big Tech valuations. Musk’s drawn-out acquisition of Twitter, which he launched in April but attempted to abort in July, has closed just as a

Elon Musk has closed his $44bn deal to take Twitter private, according to three people familiar with the matter, bringing an end to one of the most high-profile and dramatic buyout sagas in recent memory after months of legal wrangling between the world’s richest man and the social media platform. As the billionaire entrepreneur took

Credit Suisse is seeking to raise SFr4bn ($4.05bn) of capital, including SFr1.5bn from the Saudi National Bank, through shares sales as part of efforts to restructure its business. The Swiss lender has also agreed to sell its securitised products unit to US investment groups Pimco and Apollo and outlined plans to spin off its capital

Alphabet sent a tremor through the worlds of digital advertising and ecommerce as it reported an unexpectedly severe slowdown in its core search ads business, prompting a sell-off in tech stocks and fanning fears of an economic slowdown in the US. Third-quarter revenues at the largest seller of digital advertising in the US grew by

The dramatic sell-off in Chinese markets that followed confirmation of President Xi Jinping’s third term in power hammered stocks popular with big fund managers, suggesting billions of dollars of losses for those who stuck by their portfolios. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon index, which tracks US-listed shares in Chinese companies, shed 14.4 per cent on Monday

Boris Johnson has pulled out of the race to become Britain’s next prime minister after his campaign stalled and rivals claimed he did not have the backing of the 100 Tory MPs needed to enter the contest on Monday. Despite frantic attempts by Johnson to bolster his support, he announced at 9pm on Sunday that

Former UK chancellor Rishi Sunak is poised to formally enter the race to become Britain’s next prime minister after securing public backing from the 100 Tory MPs needed to enter the ballot. Sunak had 111 declared backers by Saturday evening; Conservative MPs had yet to decide whether to put former prime minister Boris Johnson on

Investors and some Conservative MPs took fright on Friday as Boris Johnson considered running for a second stint as UK prime minister, with warnings that he risked triggering further political and economic chaos. Johnson’s allies are scrambling to secure the 100 nominations needed from Tory MPs to enter Monday’s ballot to replace Liz Truss, who

Video: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, former chancellor, has emerged as the early favourite to become Britain’s next prime minister, after Liz Truss terminated a 44-day premiership marked by economic and political turmoil. Truss’s resignation made her the shortest-serving prime minister in Britain’s history; her time in Number 10 will be

Liz Truss’s UK government was plunged into complete disarray on Wednesday as Suella Braverman was forced to quit as home secretary and party discipline collapsed in the House of Commons. Tory MPs said the government was dying as recriminations flew over Braverman’s ousting and openly rebelled over the government’s plans to resume shale gas fracking.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is preparing to raid the profits of banks and energy companies in an attempt to fill a £40bn fiscal hole through a mix of tax rises and public spending cuts. Hunt’s Budget on October 31 is due to include big tax rises, with allies of the chancellor saying they expect him to

Liz Truss has apologised to the nation for the economic chaos that has engulfed Britain following last month’s “mini” Budget, but her premiership was hanging by a thread as Tory pressure mounted on her to quit. Truss sat expressionless on Monday in the House of Commons as she watched her new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, rip

Liz Truss is battling for her political survival as leading business figures and Conservative MPs pile pressure on the UK prime minister to resign after a series of damaging U-turns that have shredded her credibility. Truss’s decision to appoint Jeremy Hunt as chancellor and scrap key parts of her economic platform have failed to reassure

The UK’s new chancellor Jeremy Hunt has admitted that Liz Truss’s government went “too far, too fast” in last month’s “mini” Budget and that in the near future taxes will have to rise and spending will have to be cut in order to regain economic credibility. In a statement on Saturday evening Hunt said the

Liz Truss sacked her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and shredded her economic strategy on Friday, but her effort to salvage her premiership failed to win over financial markets and left Conservative MPs in a state of mutiny. In a Downing Street press conference lasting less than 10 minutes, Truss named Jeremy Hunt, former foreign secretary, as

UK chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has left Washington early to address the country’s economic crisis as Prime Minister Liz Truss prepares to rip up the government’s “mini” Budget in a desperate attempt to rebuild market confidence and save her embryonic premiership. Kwarteng, who was attending IMF meetings in the US, dashed to the airport on Thursday

The Bank of England battled a renewed sell-off in UK government bonds on Wednesday after its vow to end its emergency gilt-buying programme unsettled markets already unnerved by the fiscal plans of prime minister Liz Truss. The central bank bought £4.4bn of gilts from investors, its biggest intervention since it entered the market last month

Andrew Bailey dashed the hopes of pension funds on Tuesday, ruling out continuing the Bank of England’s £65bn bond-buying intervention into next week. The BoE governor said that although strains had been felt, market conditions in the government bonds “seemed calmer” on Tuesday after it had staged its second emergency intervention in two days. “We’ve

Kwasi Kwarteng will need to announce a fiscal tightening of more than £60bn if he wants to convince investors that he can stabilise the UK’s public finances, according to a leading think-tank. The chancellor, who has promised to “get debt falling in the medium term”, will on October 31 set out a new debt-cutting plan

Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of carrying out a “terrorist attack” against the bridge linking Crimea to mainland Russia, a critical military supply route for its invasion of Ukraine and symbol of Russian prestige. Russia’s president said there was “no doubt” that Ukraine was behind the explosion, which sent two of the bridge’s road spans

An explosion tore through Russia’s bridge across the Kerch Strait to Crimea early on Saturday, killing at least three people and severely damaging its structure in a major blow to Vladimir Putin more than seven months into his invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s anti-terrorist committee said a truck exploded on the bridge’s roadside in the early

Liz Truss has overruled her chancellor and insisted the UK should not set a limit on the number of applications for low-tax investment zones despite internal Treasury concerns the projects could cost billions of pounds in lost taxes. The flagship policy designed to turbocharge UK investment is a key plank of Truss’s “dash for growth”

UK regulators on Friday fired the starting gun on a new round of licences enabling companies to explore for oil and gas in the North Sea, as climate campaigners signalled they would aim to mount a legal challenge. The North Sea Transition Authority is expected to award more than 100 permits to companies by the

The White House has accused Opec+ of aligning with Russia after Saudi Arabia led the group in agreeing deep oil production cuts, prompting a backlash from countries already battling surging energy inflation triggered by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The Opec+ group said it would reduce production targets by 2mn barrels a day, equivalent to 2