Nearly £11bn wiped off UK banks after US regional banking fears spooked markets – as it happened

Nearly £11bn has been wiped off the value of the largest banks listed in London today.Banks were among the big fallers in today’s sell-off, with Barclays down 5.66%, NatWest losing 2.88%, HSBC down 2.5%, Standard Chartered losing 3

Bank shares lead global market fall amid jitters over US private credit

European stock markets fell on Friday and gold hit a record high after two US regional banks said they had been exposed to millions of dollars of bad loans and alleged fraud.Signs of credit stress rattled markets across Europe and Asia. In London the FTSE 100 fell 0.9%, Germany’s Dax fell 1.8%, Italy’s FTSE Mib fell 1

‘A foot out in the cold’: leaders huddle at IMF as icy economic winds blow

“The security blanket is covering us, but maybe we have a foot out in the cold.” That was the typically colourful warning from the International Monetary Fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, this week to its gathering of finance ministers in Washington.At its spring meetings in April, the IMF said the erratic trade policies emanating from the White House, half a mile away from its glass and steel HQ, amounted to a “major negative shock” for the global economy.Since then, experts’ worst fears have not materialised – global growth has held up; frantic negotiations, agile manufacturers and new trading links have prevented supply chains collapsing.But the US economy has been cushioned against the full effects of the trade shift by the AI mega-boom – and the IMF issued a clear warning this week that it may not last

What could a Trump deal on critical minerals mean for Australia – and could Maga be a sticking point?

Australia’s rich deposits of minerals used for green energy technologies and military hardware are increasingly prized, especially because of rising anxiety about China’s stranglehold on the global supply chain.That anxiety escalated after Beijing imposed new restrictions on rare earths exports, prompting a furious rebuke from Donald Trump and a warning from his treasury secretary that western allies would need to “decouple” from China if it proved an unreliable supplier.The timing of the latest US-China trade conflict could be good for Anthony Albanese, who will arrive at next week’s White House meeting armed with a valuable bargaining chip to negotiate with the deal-making president.The Australian government is expected to offer the US access to a proposed critical minerals stockpile, amid wider attempts to shield the country from the worst of Trump’s trade strikes and secure the Aukus submarine deal.But one expert thinks the critical minerals fight puts Australia in a “really compromised position”, caught between the competing priorities of its strongest strategic ally and its biggest trading partner

UK government borrowing costs fall to lowest level since July

The UK government’s borrowing costs have fallen to the lowest level since July as Rachel Reeves considers tax rises and spending cuts before next month’s autumn budget.In a boost for the chancellor, the yield – in effect the interest rate – on 10-year UK government bonds has fallen by about 0.15 percentage points this week, after briefly dipping below 4.5% early on Friday for the first time in three months.Government bond yields have tumbled across advanced economies, as investors scrambled to buy safe-haven assets amid fears over US-China trade tensions and signs of stress in the US banking system

Gaucho chain to slash waiters’ share of service charge and boost head office pay

The Argentinian steak restaurant Gaucho is slashing the share of the service charge its waiters receive, using some of the funds to bump up the pay package of head office workers.A letter to workers seen by the Guardian says that from 1 October existing waiters would receive between 25.45% and 29.4% of the service charge collected at tables they have served, depending on length of service, down from 37% previously – already a reduction from 45% early last year. Bar staff will get 17% of the service charge, down from 20%