Business

The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged at its meeting. Markets were more interested in its latest projections for the American economy. The Fed now expects GDP to expand by 1.7% in 2025, down from a previous forecast of 2.1%, and inflation to average 2.7%, up from its projection of 2.5%. Meanwhile, Donald Trump nominated Michelle Bowman, one of the Fed’s governors, to the job of overseeing bank regulation at the Fed. A critic of over-stringent rules, Ms Bowman is expected to take a lighter-touch approach to Wall Street than her predecessor, Michael Barr.

At its meeting the Bank of Japan kept interest rates on hold at 0.5%. Ueda Kazuo, the central bank’s governor, gave no indication about when it might raise rates again to counter inflationary pressures in Japan, and said that “overseas uncertainty has heightened significantly”, a reference to Mr Trump’s trade wars.

Gold fever

The risk to the world economy from Mr Trump’s tariffs and tensions in the Middle East spurred the price of gold to another record. The spot price for the precious metal rose above $3,000 an ounce for the first time, as investors turned to their traditional haven during a stockmarket sell-off. The S&P 500 is down by 3% this year and the NASDAQ Composite by 8%.

The Bank of England left its key interest rate on hold at 4.5%. Andrew Bailey, the bank’s governor, also spoke about the uncertainty in the world economy, though he still thinks rates are on a “gradually declining path”. A survey that the bank uses found that more firms are curbing their hiring of staff and will consider job cuts, unless the British economy picks up.

The Chinese government unveiled its “special action plan” to get consumers spending more in order to boost the economy. The plan includes increases in locally set minimum wages, expanded workfare programmes and subsidised credit for thrifty consumers. But it provided little detail on the fiscal measures that will be needed to support the new stimulus.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, undertook its biggest acquisition to date by agreeing to buy Wiz, a cyber-security startup, for $32bn. Wiz works mainly in cloud computing and its customers include Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s Azure. SoftBank, meanwhile, agreed to buy Ampere Computing for $6.5bn. Ampere makes processors based on technology from Arm, a chip designer in which SoftBank has a majority stake.

Around 25,000 developers, software engineers, academics and industry leaders attended Nvidia’s annual showcase conference in San Jose. The chipmaker unveiled its new products, including Blackwell Ultra. The new chips are better at “reasoning”, shorthand for the technique behind the latest generation of chatbots.

JX Advanced Metals, which makes advanced products for semiconductors from rare metals and copper, raised ¥439bn ($2.9bn) from its flotation on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It was Japan’s biggest IPO since SoftBank sold off its telecoms arm in 2018.

In a complaint filed at a federal court in New York, Ben & Jerry’s alleged that Unilever, its parent company, had sacked its chief executive, David Stever, for continuing to uphold its “social mission”. The ice-cream maker often strays from its business of producing tubs of Cookie Dough and Caramel Chew-Chew to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and support for Palestinian refugees. Unilever, which is in the process of spinning off its ice-cream business, didn’t immediately comment.

Drowning in debt

The Court of Appeal in London dismissed a challenge to a £3bn ($3.9bn) rescue plan for Thames Water, Britain’s biggest provider of water and sewage services. A group of creditors are loaning Thames Water the money with a hefty interest rate of 9.75%. Some junior creditors, who stand to lose out because of the deal, took the matter to court. Many politicians think the debt-laden company should instead be nationalised.

BYD’s share price hit a record high after the Chinese maker of electric vehicles said its new battery-charging system could provide a car with a range of 470km (292 miles) in five minutes, about the time it takes to fill a petrol engine. That depends on the voltage supplied at charging stations among other things, but the new system could put BYD ahead of Tesla and Mercedes in the race for fast-charging EV solutions.

Meanwhile, Xiaomi, a Chinese company best known for smartphones but which has expanded into electric cars, raised its delivery target for EVs this year from 300,000 to 350,000. Xiaomi’s EV business accounts for 9% of its revenues.

Two NASA astronauts who were stranded at the International Space Station splashed down to Earth in a SpaceX capsule, along with two other astronauts. Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore arrived at the ISS in June on board a test flight of Boeing’s Starliner, but the spacecraft encountered technical problems and returned to Earth without its crew.