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Spending by US companies on private jets for personal use by chief executives and chairs hit the highest level for a decade last year as many businesses relaxed restrictions on using them because of the pandemic. It rose 35 per cent to $33.8mn among S&P 500 groups in 2021 — the highest since 2012, according

Cruise ship stocks were among the biggest winners in Friday’s rally. Carnival (CCL) shares were up over 12%. Royal Caribbean (RCL) and Norwegian Cruise (NCLH) shares were both up over 15%. The jumps came after Carnival forecast a core profit for the current quarter as the cruise operator returns to full operations, even as surging inflation and

Nato is to increase its forces on high alert by more than sevenfold to 300,000 in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as part of a sweeping overhaul to better protect its eastern flank. In a historic shift from the post-cold war era, when military spending was cut and troops pulled back from eastern Europe,

Credit Suisse has become the first domestic bank to be found guilty of a corporate crime by Swiss authorities after a court found the lender failed to stop the laundering of Bulgarian drug money. The verdict was handed down in the southern Swiss city of Bellinzona by the country’s highest criminal court on Monday. Judges

In an effort to be transparent and prevent conflicts of interest, the Ethics in Government Act requires many elected officials to file an annual financial disclosure statement that reveals their assets, investments, and businesses interests. Senators are one of the groups of people who must make this disclosure. Their statements are made available to the public and

When Joe Biden ran for the US presidency, he accused Saudi Arabia of “murdering children” in Yemen, where its forces led a military intervention against Iranian-backed Houthi fighters. But in a striking about-turn, just weeks ahead of a trip to the kingdom, Biden praised Riyadh’s “courageous leadership” in the conflict. The president’s July visit comes

Good morning and welcome to Europe Express. G7 leaders are gathered in Schloss Elmau since yesterday, discussing, among other issues, the idea of an oil price cap on Russian imports, as the FT reports. Our colleagues on the ground (or rather, in the crisp mountain air of the Bavarian Alps) will bring you up to

The popular sentiment of financial analysts and many economists is that recessions are the inevitable result of the business cycle in a capitalist economy. The empirical evidence, at least on the surface, appears to strongly back up this theory. Recessions seem to occur every decade or so in modern economies and, more specifically, they seem

The head of RWE has warned that Germany’s biggest utility will reconsider £15bn of investment it plans to make in the UK’s renewable energy sector if the country imposes a windfall tax on electricity generators. RWE is one of the UK’s largest power producers, supplying about 15 per cent of the country’s electricity through assets

This article picked by a teacher with suggested questions is part of the Financial Times free schools access programme. Details/registration here. Specification: AQA Component 1, Section 3.1.1.1: The nature and sources of the British Constitution: debates about the extent of rights in the UK Edexcel Component 1, 1.4: Rights in context: debates on the extent, limits

Carl Icahn is one of Wall Street’s most successful figures. In the 1980s, this corporate raider—using Drexel Burnham’s junk bonds—became known as a vulture capitalist, taking positions in public companies and initially demanding extreme changes in their corporate leadership and management styles. Often, targets paid him “greenmail” money, with the stipulation that he would step

In this article IMO-CA SU-CA ADBE AVGO KLAC A sign on the campus offices of chipmaker Broadcom Ltd is shown in Irvine, California. Mike Blake | Reuters As the first half of 2022 winds down, investors can be certain of at least one thing: This year will likely continue to be difficult. Economic risk is

Midas, a 46-year-old construction company based in south-west England, collapsed in January blaming soaring material and labour costs, and a decision by clients to scrap key contracts. The buckling of the privately owned building firm, which directly employed 300 staff and had turnover of £290mn last year, rippled through the seaside town of Torquay, delaying

The UK is in the throes of the kind of labour unrest not seen for decades. This is visible in the railways, London Underground and British Airways. Teachers and other public sector workers may join in. The explanation for this is clear. Unanticipated inflation delivers losses everybody wants to recoup. This triggers social conflict. Yet

The sports betting industry rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars each year, thanks to a loophole in the law against gambling. While there are several different fantasy sports sites out there, two startups have capitalized on the growing number of sports fans looking for a quick and easy way to get involved with fantasy

There was a second explosive charge hidden within the bombshell Supreme Court ruling that gutted abortion rights across America. “In future cases,” wrote Clarence Thomas, the 74-year old conservative justice, “we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents.” With that single phrase, Thomas raised the fears of liberal America that the country’s

As this week’s Wimbledon tennis championship has neared there has been a lot of fretting about Rafael Nadal. Have doctors fixed the Spanish star’s dodgy left foot? Would he be distracted by his wife’s pregnancy with their first child? Could he really repeat his wins at this year’s French and Australian Opens? Happily for Nadal

Bonds are loans to corporations, municipalities, or other entities. Investors loan their money to the entity and later receive interest on their principal. Bond exchange-traded funds (ETFs), unlike stock ETFs, are fixed-income funds that let investors earn income from interest payments. Many bond ETFs focus on municipal, corporate, government, and international debt, while others track

Iran and the EU said talks to revive the 2015 nuclear accord between the Islamic republic and leading global powers would restart “in the coming days”, beginning with indirect talks between Tehran and the US. “We are ready to resume the talks,” Hossein Amirabdollahian, Iran’s foreign minister, said on Saturday at a joint press conference

Russia launched a barrage of missile strikes on Ukraine early on Saturday, stepping up hostilities a day after Ukrainian troops retreated from the embattled city of Severodonetsk. As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine entered its fifth month, regional governors reported strikes on military bases in western Ukraine’s Lviv region, in Zhytomyr west of Kyiv, and

The U.S. Department of Education has agreed to cancel $6 billion in student loan debt, a decision that affects about 200,000 federal loan borrowers. The borrowers had filed a class-action lawsuit against the federal agency, saying that they were stuck paying off debt from schools that misled them. Key Takeaways The federal government has decided

Boris Johnson struck a defiant note after his Conservative party suffered two major by-election defeats this week, saying that he would not undergo a “psychological transformation”. The UK prime minister, speaking from a Commonwealth summit in Rwanda, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Saturday morning that he would instead concentrate on issues such

Investors are questioning how much further US stocks will slide this year, after a protracted sell-off that knocked Wall Street’s S&P 500 more than a fifth below its January peak. Fears have intensified that the US central bank will tip the world’s largest economy into recession, in a bid to tackle soaring inflation with higher

What Is Venmo? Venmo started out as a free-of-charge peer-to-peer (P2P) payment app available for iPhones and Android phones. That service is still free, as is using Venmo to pay participating merchants, who now number in the millions. Some other services carry a fee. Payments that go through a credit card account rather than a

Brenda McKinley has been selling homes in Ontario for more than two decades and even for a veteran, the past couple of years have been shocking. Prices in her patch south of Toronto rose as much as 50 per cent during the pandemic. “Houses were selling almost before we could get the sign on the

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. This week we speak with Michael R. Jackson, playwright of A Strange Loop, which just won the Tony award for Best Musical and Best Book. Jackson is a queer, black writer whose musical is about a

As a well-informed investor, you naturally want to know the expected return of your portfolio—its anticipated performance and the overall profit or loss it’s racking up. Expected return is just that: expected. It is not guaranteed, as it is based on historical returns and used to generate expectations, but it is not a prediction. The

The deflating bubble in digital assets has exposed a fragile system of credit and leverage in crypto akin to the credit crisis that enveloped the traditional finance sector in 2008. Since its inception, crypto enthusiasts have promised a future of vast personal fortunes and the foundations for a new and better financial system, dismissing critics

Global financial markets snapped a losing streak on Friday, registering their first weekly gains this month as fears of a looming recession prompt investors to rethink how aggressive central banks will need to be in order to tame high inflation. Recent lacklustre economic data has rippled across markets, with traders rapidly scaling back their expectations

If you’re looking to buy your first home and are saddled with student loan debt, you may have a decision to make. Should you use your resources to pay off your student loans more quickly, save up for a down payment on the home, or try to do both at the same time? Key Takeaways