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Investors are assessing how permanent the pandemic gains and losses of businesses will be. An update from do-it-yourself chain Kingfisher, which runs UK retailer B&Q and French counterpart Castorama, suggests it is keeping some of its lockdown-inspired lustre. The UK-listed group said like-for-like sales in the first quarter were 16 per cent ahead of pre-pandemic

Scientists in the UK have successfully created tomatoes that make large amounts of vitamin D in their leaves and fruit using pioneering gene editing technology. The researchers say the international project, led by the John Innes Centre in Norwich, could address a global health problem, with more than 1bn people estimated to be deficient in

The writer is a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University In 1951, six European countries started to co-ordinate national economic policies to develop the European Coal and Steel Community, a common market for energy and industry. The EU grew out of this effort, as did its principle of unanimous

Emmanuel Macron’s government has stood by a newly appointed minister accused by two women of sexual violence, saying it was up to the justice system to decide on such cases. The allegations, published at the weekend by investigative news site Mediapart, have disrupted the first steps of the new administration headed by Prime Minister Élisabeth

Higher earners in Great Britain increasingly plan to spend most of their working week at home, according to data that suggest the government’s drive to revive the office-based service economy is likely to fail. More than four-fifths of those who had to work remotely because of Covid-19 restrictions now plan to split their time between

Chinese ride-hailing group Didi has notified the New York Stock Exchange it will move to delist in the US after shareholders overwhelmingly backed the plan designed to return the company’s services to Chinese app stores. The ride-hailing group said more than 95 per cent of shares cast in the Monday vote approved of its delisting

Greetings from Davos, that (in)famous and rather ugly Swiss mountain town that normally hosts the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in January amid snow-capped peaks. This year’s meeting promises to be slightly different — and not just because it is being held in May amid sporadic rain and lush green meadows. For one thing, the

Ajay Rajadhyaksha is global chair of research at Barclays. Here he argues that markets are fretting too much about consumer-led recessions. For months now, markets have waited anxiously to answer the question — how is the Western consumer doing? After all, consumption accounts for over two-thirds of activity in many countries, and consumers have had

One of the central storylines of first-quarter earnings has been how pandemic stars have been caught holding the wrong merchandise as the economy shifted away from the pandemic. Last week shares of the US bellwether retailer Target dropped by a quarter — or $25bn of lost equity value — as its CEO said during its earnings

Joe Biden has launched a trade initiative with 12 Indo-Pacific countries, in his first serious effort to boost economic engagement in the region as the US seeks to counter a more assertive China. Biden unveiled the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework in Tokyo on Monday after meeting Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on his first visit to Asia

Dispatch from Newport Beach If the decades-long bull market in bonds is over, where does that leave Pimco? The world’s largest credit-focused fund manager was already having to swim against two powerful tides. Fees for active managers are under pressure due to competition from index-tracking funds, and the legacy of one of the most spectacular

The UK government faces trial in the High Court next month over its award of an £854mn contract for a new Meteorological Office IT system expected to be the world’s most advanced supercomputer dedicated to weather prediction and climate change. A lawsuit has been brought by Atos, the IT services group which lost out on

Behind the counter of F.lli Gondola, a coffee bar and pastry shop in Frattamaggiore, owner Salvatore Gondola keeps a picture of Italian footballer Lorenzo Insigne. Insigne, who grew up in this small town to the north of Naples, and his fellow Azzurri players won the nation’s hearts when they clinched the European football championship against

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent jitters through bond markets in the Baltics and Finland, and deterred international investment in the region, as fund managers seek to avoid geopolitical risks. Debt investors are shying away from Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and showing a preference for other markets further from the Russian border, said André

In the opening shots of The Flight Attendant’s second season, we see protagonist Cassie Bowden (Kaley Cuoco) jogging along a boardwalk and saying hi to a chihuahua in a buggy, before introducing herself at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. It looks like a new, sober start for her. As one of the wildest and booziest characters in

For the private equity groups that now control so much of the US economy, America’s top antitrust enforcer has a clear message: expect more scrutiny. Over the past decade or so, the likes of Blackstone, KKR and Apollo have expanded into even bigger corporate and industrial juggernauts, owning companies seemingly across every sector of the

A single portfolio manager at Capital Group drove an €8bn sell-off of European bank stocks this year, after the war in Ukraine and the threat of a global recession caused the investment giant to sour on the sector. Capital, one of the world’s biggest fund managers with $2.7tn of assets, until recently had been one

This article is part of a guide to London from FT Globetrotter Skyline Afternoon Tea at Ting in the Shangri-La, The Shard Level 35, Shangri-La The Shard, 31 St Thomas Street, London SE1 9QU There’s nothing more reviving for a Londoner than doing something incredibly touristy that makes you look at the city afresh. That,

Sam Jones observes an Austrian political class riven by corruption (Outlook, May 19), while to David Kaufman (Letters, May 19) Vienna is the epitome of civilisation because the rich use public transport. Can both pictures be true? Of course! As in Die Fledermaus, when double-dealing, cynicism and deception are revealed, everyone pretends to be in

Jemima Kelly is absolutely right: there is a strong moral case against crypto (Opinion, May 19). She did omit one argument, however. Part of the hype about crypto is that it’s an alternative to the dollar. The main traded currencies are all issued and backed by democracies. In fact, these currencies are an important arsenal