Motor finance, Madoff fraud, tax fears – bank shares defy the noise October 31, 2025 A motor finance battle, hefty impairment charges and the shadow of 2008 all cast over banks third-quarter results but beneath the fog investors are rewarding the FTSE 100’s top lenders for another bumper quarter. The FTSE 350 banks index has risen nearly four per cent this month and is up 17 per cent for the [...]
Roll-on the World Cup! Spain’s young guns sign deal with Old Spice October 30, 2025 Not so long ago Old Spice was a punchline; a brand associated with a bygone era and reliant on an ageing – not to say, perishing – demographic. More recently it has tried to shake off this stuffy image, leaning into sports such as the NFL. This week made perhaps its most intriguing move yet: [...]
Will the Autumn Budget push up inflation? October 30, 2025 For a few weeks, there was one thing Rachel Reeves appeared to speak about more than anything else: inflation. Earlier this month, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirmed inflation hit 3.8 per cent in the year to September, nearly double the Bank of England’s target rate. The IMF and the OECD said the UK [...]
Big Tech earnings: Investors reward AI returns, punish spending spree October 30, 2025 Wall Street was shaken up by Silicon Valley heavyweights overnight as a trio of Big Techs laid bare the cost of their AI strategies. Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft all reported earnings after the bell on Wednesday, offering investors a glimpse into the now trillion-dollar race to lead the AI boom. But, while Alphabet, Google’s parent [...]
Starmer reprimands Reeves for ‘inadvertent failure’ over rental licence mishap October 30, 2025 Sir Keir Starmer has sent a sharply worded email to Rachel Reeves criticising the Chancellor for misleading suggestions that she did not know she needed a licence to rent out her family home. Reeves has had to backtrack from earlier suggestions that she and her husband had not been aware of the Southwark Council rental [...]
New Principality Stadium naming rights deal ‘challenging’, says former negotiator October 30, 2025 The timing of a new deal for the naming rights of Cardiff’s Principality Stadium has been described as “challenging for Welsh rugby” given the state of the game across the River Severn. The 73,931-capacity stadium on the banks of the Taff is the fourth largest in the UK and plays host to the Wales rugby [...]
Abu Dhabi sets sights New York, London and Singapore October 30, 2025 Over the last decade, Abu Dhabi has attracted more than 300 financial firms, with a combined $28.6 trillion in assets globally, as the city positions itself as a global “capital of capital.” ADGM, Abu Dhabi’s international financial centre, revealed it has experienced rapid growth from financial firms over the last three years, increasing from 131 [...]
Fujitsu rakes in more public sector work after Post Office scandal October 30, 2025 The IT company at the heart of the Post Office scandal raked in nearly half a billion pounds in public sector contracts between 2024 and 2025, an increase on the previous year’s figure despite it having pledged not to bid for new government contracts. Fujitsu, whose faulty Horizon accounting system led to the wrongful convictions [...]
The tax trap catching thousands of working pensioners October 30, 2025 Thousands of working pensioners found themselves ensnared in the income tax trap last year, as frozen thresholds yanked them into the higher tax bracket. According to a freedom of information request to HMRC by Interactive Investor, 77,000 pensioners found themselves paying 60 per cent income tax, up from just 34,000 three years ago. It was [...]
UK public uneasy about self-driving vehicles ahead of Waymo launch October 30, 2025 Ahead of Waymo’s arrival on British roads, a new report reveals that nearly three-quarters of people in the UK are concerned about the safety of self-driving vehicles. According to insurer Allianz, across six regions, more than 70 per cent of Brits said they had concerns about this emerging technology, compared to between 64 per cent [...]