5 things to start your day
1) Biggest North Sea oil find in decades to be drilled for first time | Sites expected to produce 500m barrels of oil despite net zero crackdown
2) Cyber attacks risk triggering bank runs, warns IMF | Research shows the number of malicious attacks has doubled since the pandemic
3) Baby boomers are coping best with higher bills, FCA survey finds | Older Britons are more likely to own homes outright and have inflation linked income
4) Why Mohammed bin Salman has been forced to rein in his dreams of a mirror city | Plans for a gleaming skyscraper utopia in the Saudi desert have lost their shine
5) Jeremy Warner: Failures in the Bank’s forecasting are about to be thrown into sharp relief | Sound monetary policy must be based above all on sound judgement
What happened overnight
In Wall Street, the S&P 500 edged up by 0.1pc, to 5,209.91, after barely budging the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped less than 0.1pc, to 38,883.67, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.3pc, to 16,306.64.
Treasury yields eased in the bond market ahead of Wednesday’s highly anticipated update on inflation at the U.S. consumer level. The yield on benchmark 10-year US Treasury bonds dipped to 4.35pc from 4.42pc late on Monday.
Hong Kong stocks rose at the open on Wednesday, the Hang Seng Index adding 0.58pc, or 97.95 points, to 16,926.02.
The Shanghai Composite Index dipped 0.08pc, or 2.58 points, to 3,045.96, meanwhile the Shenzhen Composite Index on China’s second exchange gave up 0.23pc, or 3.97 points, to 1,746.83.
In Tokyo, stocks also opened lower with investors expected to take a wait-and-see stance ahead of the release of US inflation data.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index dropped 0.34pc, or 133.84 points, to 39,639.29 while the broader Topix index slipped 0.31pc, or 8.61 points, to 2,746.08.
Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.
