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Apple has been forced to make drastic cuts to production forecasts for the mixed-reality Vision Pro headset, unveiled last month after seven years in development and hailed as its most significant product launch since the iPhone. The complexity of the headset design and difficulties in production are behind the scaling back of targets, while plans

The world’s largest active bond fund manager says markets are too optimistic about central banks’ ability to dodge a recession as they battle inflation in the US and Europe. Daniel Ivascyn, chief investment officer at Pimco, which manages $1.8tn of assets, said he was preparing for a “harder landing” than other investors while top central

One of the largest investors in Thames Water has given its support for the utility as other industry figures sought to stave off any possible nationalisation of the sector. The £90bn Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), which has a near 20 per cent stake in Thames Water, said on Friday: “We have given our backing to

Investment bankers’ advisory fees have plunged to the lowest level in almost a decade as the industry suffers from a wave of job cuts because of a prolonged slowdown in deal activity. Fees for completed mergers and acquisitions globally plummeted 35 per cent in the first half of the year to $12.8bn compared with 2022,

The UK has missed out on a global stock market rally so far in 2023 as the Bank of England’s scramble to raise interest rates and falling oil prices hold back the FTSE 100. London’s main benchmark has lagged well behind other big developed market indices, gaining less than 1 per cent from the level

Ukraine has hit back at doubters over the progress of its summer counteroffensive, insisting recent modest gains against Russian occupiers were merely a “preview” of a much bigger push to come. Oleksiy Reznikov, Ukraine’s defence minister, told the Financial Times that the liberation of a group of villages under Russian occupation in recent weeks was

The head of the Wagner private military group has denied trying to overthrow the Russian government but redoubled his criticism of the country’s defence establishment in his first public comments since Saturday’s abortive march on Moscow. In an 11-minute voice recording posted on Telegram on Monday, Yevgeny Prigozhin said his goal had been to protest

Russia has shown images of defence minister Sergei Shoigu visiting troops, the first time he has been pictured in public since warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin’s weekend insurrection against senior military leadership. The brief video, posted on Monday by the defence ministry, showed Shoigu inspecting a Russian command point and listening to a report from subordinates about

Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin has said his Wagner mercenaries had abandoned their insurrection against the country’s armed forces just hours before a potential assault on Moscow, signalling a possible end to the first coup attempt in Russia for three decades. In a deal brokered by Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko, Prigozhin said his convoy of troops,

Vladimir Putin has admitted the situation in Rostov-on-Don is “complicated” after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s forces seized command points in the southern city and called on the Wagner mercenary group’s rank-and-file to lay down their arms. “Those who organised and prepared the military uprising, who took arms against their comrades, have betrayed Russia. And will pay for it.

Global central banks are entering a new phase in their battle with inflation as economists warn that recessions will be the price of achieving shared 2 per cent goals. Headline rates of inflation across most of the world’s economies have fallen back sharply since the autumn but core rates — which exclude volatile categories such

The Bank of England is expected to raise interest rates by a quarter point to 4.75 per cent on Thursday, with increasing calls for tougher action to fight persistent high inflation. Headline inflation stuck at 8.7 per cent in May, according to worse than expected data on Wednesday, with core inflation — which excludes volatile

UK inflation remained stuck at 8.7 per cent in May, higher than expectations of a drop to 8.4 per cent, marking the fourth month in a row that price rises have exceeded forecasts. With the cost of a broad range of goods and services rising sharply, the figures will reinforce expectations of multiple interest rate

Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADQ held detailed talks to take Wall Street investment bank Lazard private, in a move that underlined the oil-rich emirate’s ambitions to acquire a western financial services company. The talks were held this year between Lazard, led by outgoing chief executive Ken Jacobs, and ADQ, led by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed

AstraZeneca has drawn up plans to break out its China business and list it separately in Hong Kong as a way to shelter the company against mounting geopolitical tensions. The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker began discussing the idea with bankers several months ago and is among a growing number of multinational companies now considering that option, according

Beijing’s bid to persuade investors to value its giant state-owned enterprises according to their socialist credentials, rather than by conventional western capitalist measures, has flopped after a rally in their shares fizzled this month. The stocks rose after officials in November called for the creation of a “valuation system with Chinese characteristics” that departed from

UK households that come to the end of fixed-rate mortgage deals next year face an average £2,900 increase in annual payments, putting Rishi Sunak under pressure to defuse an election-year time bomb. The estimated increase in payments by the Resolution Foundation think-tank reflects concern that the UK has a worse inflation problem than other countries

Job cuts at the largest US banks this year are on course to surpass 11,000 as Wall Street contends with the worst recruitment market since the financial crisis following a pandemic-era hiring binge. Citigroup this week became the latest big US bank to announce significant job cuts, telling investors that it planned to complete 5,000

China’s central bank has cut its main policy rate for the first time in 10 months as new data reinforced concerns over a stalling post-Covid recovery in the world’s second-largest economy. The People’s Bank of China trimmed its medium-term lending facility rate, a one-year rate that influences bank funding costs, from 2.75 per cent to

Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to the first federal criminal charges brought against a former US president during an initial appearance to answer an indictment at a courthouse in Miami on Tuesday. Trump has accused prosecutors of conducting a “witch hunt” in bringing the case over his alleged failure to return sensitive national security records