‘A lifeline’: how fashion designers came to love the high street collab

When the boss of Marks & Spencer reported a drop in clothing sales in its latest half-year results on Wednesday, he was keen to stress the problems were down to spring’s devastating cyber-attack and “not due to lack of demand”.Stuart Machin said the once-staid retailer had been “inundated with requests” for its fashion range, which has been revitalised in recent years and was again lifted by last year’s collaboration with designer Bella Freud.On Thursday last week, M&S launched a fresh tie-up, this time with London fashion label 16Arlington. With sequin dresses, statement evening coats and tops with feather detail, it’s set for the festive party season.It came on the same day H&M unveiled a similar venture with Glenn Martens, the Belgian designer about to take over at Maison Margiela

Drax power plant to go on earning ‘over £1m a day’ from burning wood pellets

Britain’s biggest power plant will continue to earn more than £1m a day from burning wood pellets under a new government subsidy contract designed to halve its financial support, according to analysts.The Drax power plant in North Yorkshire is in line to earn £458.6m a year between 2027 and 2031 after the government agreed to extend its subsidies beyond 2026, according to analysts at Ember, a climate thinktank.The earnings are well below the £869m in subsidies handed to the Drax power plant last year for generating about 5% of the UK’s electricity from burning biomass after the government promised to curb the use of biomass in Britain’s power system.Under the contract, Drax will be paid to run just over a quarter of the time, down sharply from almost two-thirds of time currently

European markets down and Asian chipmakers tumble in global stock sell-off amid worries over AI bubble – as it happened

Jim Reid, analyst at Deutsche Bank, said there is talk of whether we are “on the verge of an equity correction”.The last 24 hours have brought a clear risk-off move, as concerns over lofty tech valuations have hit investor sentiment. Markets compounded these losses in the early hours of Asian trading but have been rallying back in the couple of hours prior to going to print with US futures clawing back towards flat with the Kospi rallying back a couple of percentage points from early -5% plus losses.On Wall Street yesterday, the S&P 500 closed down 1.17%, losing ground because of sharp losses among tech stocks, and there was a big slump for Palantir (-7

Ozempic maker struggles as it loses ground to rivals in weight-loss market

The maker of Ozempic and Wegovy has cut its sales and profit forecasts as it continues to fall behind in the competitive market for obesity and diabetes treatments.Novo Nordisk’s chief executive, Mike Doustdar, who took the reins in August, said the reduced guidance was because of “the lower growth expectations for our GLP-1 treatments”.“The market is more competitive than ever more,” Doustdar said in a video message accompanying the company’s third-quarter results.The Danish pharmaceutical firm’s rate of profit growth has slowed and its share price has slid after losing ground to its US rival Eli Lilly, which makes the Mounjaro and Zepbound weight-loss injections. Clinical studies have shown that Mounjaro is more effective in causing weight loss than Wegovy

M&S boss says Reeves made customers more worried with pre-budget speech

The boss of Marks & Spencer has said Rachel Reeves has made his customers “more worried” about rising costs with her pre-budget speech as retailers prepare for the key Christmas trading period.Stuart Machin said his shoppers were “worried about rising costs and they did get more worried” after the chancellor failed to rule out breaking manifesto pledges not to raise key taxes in her speech on Tuesday.The M&S chief executive suggested Reeves’s lack of detail in spelling out her plans had left shoppers and businesses unsure about what new costs they could face in the months ahead.“Shoppers are planning for a good Christmas, but planning for the worst with the budget and hoping for the best,” he said.Expressing frustration about the timing of the fiscal event – just two days before Black Friday on 28 November, the US-inspired discount day which has become one of the year’s busiest shopping days – Machin said: “We are all sitting here waiting for the 26th”

Global stock markets fall sharply over AI bubble fears

Global stock markets have fallen sharply amid concerns that a boom in valuations of artificial intelligence (AI) companies could be rapidly cooling.Markets in the US, Asia and Europe have fallen after bank bosses warned a serious stock market correction could lie ahead, after a run of record stock market highs led some companies to appear overvalued.In the US, the tech-focused Nasdaq and the S&P 500 on Tuesday suffered their largest one-day percentage drop in almost a month.Technology shares pulled the Nasdaq lower, which resulted in it closing 2% down. Meanwhile, there were one-day falls for all of the “magnificent seven” AI-related stocks, including the chipmaker Nvidia, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Alphabet (the owner of Google) and Meta (the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp)