Your daily market briefing

Central bank chair under pressure to back warnings on inflation with action despite risking president’s ire

Humans will have to compete with AI-powered virtual employees in the near future. Here are our tips for the last human holdouts Futureproofing your career with an AI-resistant degree is a tough ask, says Charlie Ball, an expert on graduate employment for Jisc, the UK’s higher education digital, data and technology agency. “What you’re trying to do is futureproof a 45-year career in a time of rapid technological change – and that’s really quite hard to do. What’s likely is that jobs that hinge a lot on human, face-to-face interaction are unlikely to be replaced.” Continue reading...

UK Labour Market Downturn Accelerates Ahead of BOE Decision, Burnham's Budget

UK jobs market stays soft before BoE rate call

Moscow would need to commit ‘honestly and on a long-term basis’ to peace before Kyiv would de-escalate. What we know on day 1,665 Ukraine will only halt attacks on Russian energy targets if the enemy does likewise and the US guarantees it, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. The announcement came after Donald Trump’s uncorroborated claim that both sides have agreed to such a ceasefire. Neither Ukraine nor Russia had said so at time of writing. The US president regularly claims to have brokered what turn out to be nonexistent or extremely shortlived deals between foreign adversaries or with his own overseas enemies, such as Iran. Ukraine’s president said: “So far, no one ‌has seen any genuine ‌willingness on Russia’s part to bring the war to an end. But if our ‌American partners can secure Russia’s genuine readiness to end the war aimed at destroying lives, and to do so honestly and on a long-term basis, Ukraine will take its own de-escalatory steps.” Russia would need to stop attacking Ukraine’s critical infrastructure for its intentions to be taken seriously, Zelenskyy suggested. It comes after Trump tried to blame diesel shortages and high prices on Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil refiner

Party leader claims proposed new retrospective laws are unfair and Reform would retaliate with a crackdown on union funding if elected Good morning. Ministers already think that the new laws on political donations, as set out in the version of the representation of the people bill which left the Commons earlier this month, will be enough to block some or all of the donations worth £72m to Reform UK announced at the weekend. But they are still planning further amendments to the legislation, when peers debate their own amendments to the bill, to make the restrictions even tighter. Pippa Crerar, Jessica Elgot and Kiran Stacey have the details here in our overnight splash. Kiran and Henry Dyer also have written a good explainer about the rules. The Unite union alone has given the Labour party over £50m over the course of the last few years. They’ve got the Employment Rights Act, not to mention big pay rises for bus drivers. If anybody is giving money to do political bidding, it’s the trade unions. So I would just warn the Labour party here and now: If you try and ban our donors, we in government would certainly ban funding from the trade unions. I don’t want to go down that route. But

Beijing signals growing concern over how rapid advances in technology could be used against the country

Existing laws are not equipped to address the risks to human rights being posed by artificial intelligence, UK politicians say.

Big screen folder with slick software and advanced AI is just like a regular Android when closed Google’s latest folding phone sticks with its tried and tested design of a traditional phone shape when closed and almost square when open, in the face of new competition from Apple’s squat iPhone fold. The Pixel 11 Pro Fold is Google’s fourth-generation folder and is still one of the only models with a full water and dust resistance rating similar to standard slab phones. It costs from £1,799 (€1,999/$1,899/A$2,799), which is £50 (€100/$100/A$100) more than last year as the pressure of RAMageddon continues to push up prices. Continue reading...

UK Grocery Inflation Edges Higher Over Last Month Says Worldpanel

Chinese-made panels on rooftops across the world are changing the facts of life for big utilities

Making sense of the Fed’s next move

Deteriorating domestic indicators add pressure on policymakers to increase stimulus spending

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote says he wants ordinary people to share in the success of his oil refinery.

London-headquartered Lloyd’s Register (LR), a maritime classification and technical services provider, is teaming up with South Korea’s HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), headquartered in Ulsan, and HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (KSOE), based in Seongnam, to push hybrid-electric propulsion into the next generation of liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers (LNGCs). The post Hybrid electric propulsion at the heart of next-gen LNG carrier design appeared first on Offshore Energy.

World’s most widely watched financial marker moves towards levels not seen in decades as inflation shock from Iran war lingers

The state pension is set to rise by £490 next year as a result of the triple lock, adding to “pressures” facing Chancellor John Healey as he draws up his first budget. New earnings growth data released on Tuesday has indicated that the triple lock pension will rise by 3.9 per cent. The triple lock [...]

Will the Bank of England Raise Interest Rates Ahead of the Autumn Budget? Morningstar

The British Pound (GBP) extends losses against the US Dollar (USD) on Tuesday, with the GBP/USD pair hovering a few pips above five-week lows near 1.3465 at the London session opening times.

Britain Will 'Heed Warnings' Over AI, Burnham's Deputy Says

UK Energy Bills Forecast to Jump 25% and Drive Up Inflation

The British Pound (GBP) faces slight selling pressure against the Japanese Yen (JPY), dropping to near 208.60 on Tuesday after the release of the United Kingdom (UK) labor market data for three months ending July.

UK payrolls fall 26,000 in August as jobs market weakens ahead of BOE

The Euro (EUR) posts minor gains on Tuesday as the British Pound (GBP) falls after mixed UK employment data.

Energy Transfer, whose CEO is a major Trump donor, named as biggest single methane producer in new rankings Down a short gravel track in a largely nondescript corner of Louisiana sits a gas processing facility, operated by a company whose chief executive is a major donor to Donald Trump. It may be the largest emitter of methane in the US. The Energy Transfer site, located near the city of Shreveport, is named as the biggest single “super emitter” in new rankings of US oil and gas operations for the largest releases of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is rapidly overheating our planet, according to a new UCLA study, which is based on satellite data. Continue reading...

Bank of England urged to slow or halt bond-selling to slash UK borrowing costs The Guardian

International flows into American equities exceed government debt for first time this century outside pandemic and aftermath of global financial crisis

Metlen says European buyers favour cheaper Chinese metal despite push by Brussels to secure home-grown supplies

Clean ammonia and methanol are key to reducing vessels’ large greenhouse gas emissions

New official earnings growth figures suggest full state pension will rise by just over £488 a year from next April.

The cuts comes into effect in April, but the largest businesses will pay higher rates to fund the changes.

Economists urge John Healey to press Bank to change policy that is costing the exchequer billions of pounds Economists have urged the chancellor, John Healey, to press the Bank of England to slow down its bond-selling programme that has already cost the exchequer billions of pounds. The Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) meets this week to not only decide the level of interest rates but also whether they should freeze or slow the sale of government bonds, known as gilts, bought as part of the rescue operation after the 2008 banking crash. Continue reading...

A technology with ancient roots, it promises predictable power — if its backers can bring costs down

FTSE 100 Live: UK Stock Futures Rise as Oil Marches Higher

The US president's comments come after Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark told the BBC an AI "kill switch" may need to be mandatory.

Safety requirements are non-negotiable. They depend on meeting concrete goals, not just adjusting a timeline It has been a week of high drama in AI, precipitated by the resignation of the AI safety researcher Jacob Coxon from Anthropic. This followed several weeks of increasingly lurid and disturbing revelations about the OpenAI/Hugging Face incident. My inbox yesterday included a message from Business Insider with the subject line: “AI doomsday debate reaches boiling point”. Continue reading...

Barclays downgrades Scholar Rock stock rating on valuation

UK must prioritise domestic energy ahead of winter, says trade body Upstream Online

The donor is focusing on what he calls the ‘fight for national renewal’

Why is Antin Infrastructure Partners stock dipping today?

Compass Point initiates Hyperliquid Strategies stock with buy rating

The United Kingdom’s (UK) ILO Unemployment Rate stayed at 4.9% in the three months to July after reporting 4.9% in the previous reading, data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed on Tuesday. The data came in below the market consensus of 5.0%.

Also in this newsletter: Telecom groups warn the EU is not supporting its own sovereignty goals

Average wage growth is outpacing inflation forecasts, setting up an increase for millions of retirees next April

Google DeepMind researcher warns AI may ‘kill us all’ in exit note

Chief executives receive increase in pay this year as investor rebellions die down

Also in today’s newsletter: Putin’s summit and JLR targets Nato budgets

The triple lock guarantees that the state pension is not overtaken by inflation or wage increases.

Bank of England's Dovish Majority Tested by Oil Price Surge

Meridian Announces Inclusion in the VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ) TradingView