Friday 10/10/25

In Israel approves Trump’s plan for Gaza ceasefire and hostage release (Financial Times, Neri Zilber, Andrew England, Abigail Hauslohner and Heba Saleh) we see that things are progressing in Gaza as Netanyahu’s cabinet voted in favour of Trump’s peace plan. Trump branded this as a fait accompli at a cabinet meeting yesterday, saying that “We ended the war in Gaza”. It ain’t over yet though as there are hostages to be released and a lot of details to be hammered out about what comes afterwards.

Trump’s vendetta against critics continues in NY attorney-general Letitia James indicted after pressure from Trump (Financial Times, Stefania Palma) as the US Department of Justice has indicted James on two criminal counts – bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution, both in regard to a loan application. Back in 2022, Letitia James sued Trump, the Trump Organization, his three adult children and a number of others in a civil fraud case that resulted in a $500m penalty against the president. That penalty was overturned for being excessive but the verdict still stands at the moment. Although they deny it, it does seem like the DoJ is being used as Trump’s personal attack dog. The farce continues…

In energy news, One of world’s biggest windfarm developers to cut quarter of workforce (The Guardian, Jillian Ambrose) heralds the inevitable – that Ørsted is going to have to slash workforce numbers by 25% over the next two years as a result of the flak the wind industry has taken, particularly since Trump came to power. It’ll do it via redundancies, natural attrition and disposing of parts of the business. Fun fact: Ørsted is 50% owned by the Danish state.

Meanwhile, Spain at risk of fresh net zero blackouts (Daily Telegraph, Matt Oliver and Candela Orobitg-Baena) brings back the spectre of power blackouts as Spain’s electricity grid operator, Red Eléctrica, has warned that the country needs to make urgent changes to how it operates to cope with big fluctuations in solar energy to avoid the blackouts experienced by the country in April. * SO WHAT? * Basically, when the blackouts occurred many were quick to blame Spain’s reliance on renewables given that supply can be very volatile. This was strongly rebuffed

by the PM in particular but since then there have been various reports suggesting how to protect supplies. I think that power generation is just one part of the puzzle – ensuring its smooth delivery via a network that can handle it and improving energy storage are arguably at LEAST as important!

There’s been some interesting crypto news as well in the papers today! UK investors will be able to put crypto products in Isas (Financial Times, Steve Johnson) highlights an interesting development – that the FCA has lifted its ban on retail investors buying crypto ETFs for ISAs and pension schemes. It looks like retail access won’t be available until next week at the earliest, but this is a major development. It’ll be interesting to see what the take-up is like!

Then in Jack Dorsey releases bitcoin wallet to challenge credit cards (The Times, Louisa Clarence-Smith) we see that payments company Block has released a product that will enable more retailers to accept bitcoin. Retailers using its Square network will be able to convert up to 50% of their daily sales revenue into bitcoin! Block won’t start charging retailers for processing bitcoin payments until the beginning of 2027, upon which time it’ll take 1% of every transaction. * SO WHAT? * This sounds interesting but we’ll have to wait and see what the take-up is actually like. Dorsey talked a good game regarding this being a superior alternative to card payments which are more expensive in comparison but if no-one uses it then it’ll be a failure!

‘The debasement trade’: is this what’s driving gold, bitcoin and shares to record highs? (The Guardian, Graeme Wearden) does a decent job of explaining why investors are currently buying up gold, bitcoin and shares – a trend that’s being referred to as “the debasement trade”. This involves investors selling out of fiat (i.e. traditional) currencies like the dollar and buying “safe haven” assets as a hedge against inflation. Currency concerns have been rising for a number of years but they have intensified thanks to a build up of economic uncertainties and rising debt levels in some of the world’s biggest economies. This has led to investors selling out of currencies and buying assets like gold and bitcoin.

I thought that Delta Predicts Premium Seat Sales to Overtake Economy as Soon as 2026 (Wall Street Journal, Dean Seal) was an interesting article which cites Delta Air Lines’ prediction that first and business class passengers will outnumber those using economy by 2027. Sales improved across all geographies in Q3 thanks to rising premium cabin demand, corporate travel and its loyalty programme customers. It announced a positive outlook, setting the scene for other airlines about to report their results. * SO WHAT? * This is a solid performance and it will be interesting to see when rivals report their numbers whether this is all just a Delta thing or whether it is something that everyone is experiencing. I am sure that airlines will be glad to see the return of business travel after Covid decimated it.

In City watchdog on alert for shockwaves from First Brands collapse (The Times, Ben Martin) we see that the FCA is bracing itself for potential repercussions from the bankruptcies of car parts supplier First Brands and Tricolor, the subprime car lender in the US. Both companies went bankrupt over the last month and were very closely linked to private markets, an area that has grown immensely over the last decade but escaped tighter regulation. * SO WHAT? * Some investors are worried that this could be the first of other such collapses. The thing is that there have not been many failures in the private markets so far, so no one is quite sure about what they will be seeing.

In consumer news, Millions in England face higher water bills after regulator backs more price rises (The Guardian, Jasper Jolly and Helena Horton) highlights even more pressure to come on household budgets as five water suppliers were given permission by the Companies and Markets Authority (CMA) to raise water bills by a-more-than-expected 3% on average. This is in addition to the 24% that had previously been approved. Ouch. The companies are Anglian,

Northumbrian, Southern, Wessex and South East.

In employment news, Gen Z faces ‘job-pocalypse’ as global firms prioritise AI over new hires, report says (The Guardian, Joanna Partridge) cites a report by the British Standards Institution (BSI) which says that young people are facing a “job-pocalypse” as companies are investing in AI instead of new hires. 41% of bosses polled in the study – that covered over 850 businesses in the UK, US, France, Germany, Australia, China and Japan – said that AI was enabling them to cut the number of employees and 31% of respondents said that their organisation was prioritising AI solutions before considering hiring a person. 40% said they thought this would be the case within five years and 25% said they reckoned all or most tasks carried out by junior c0lleagues could be done with AI. 39% of leaders said entry level roles had already been cut or reduced thanks to AI. * SO WHAT? * The results of this survey sound pretty stark but then again I do wonder whether employers are just using AI as an excuse to restrict hiring because of broader economic factors. It seems to me that there are some practical use cases but at the moment I don’t think the effect is as big as everyone is thinking. It feels to me right now that AI does more to enhance rather than replace humans – but that’s not always going to be the case!

Wage growth falls to four-year low amid weak demand for staff (The Times, Jack Barnett) cites the latest KPMG and REC report which shows that wage growth is at its lowest rate since March 2021. This has been thanks to a slowdown in vacancies and a rise in the number of available candidates to fill roles. * SO WHAT? * This might be a source of comfort for those in the Bank of England who have been worried about stubborn wage growth potentially driving inflation. There are obviously many other factors to worry about but this is one of the biggies.

Ferrari halves targets for electric cars amid falling demand (Daily Telegraph, Christopher Jasper) shows that the Italian sports car company announced that it was reining in its EV plans drastically due to lukewarm demand from drivers. It had previously forecast that 40% of its lineup would be electric by 2030 – but it has now revised that to about 20%. It added that the number of traditional combustion engine models will be twice the amount previously planned while the proportion of hybrids will be roughly the same. * SO WHAT? * Ferrari has become the latest sports car maker to scale back its EV ambitions after recent pull-backs by Porsche and Aston Martin. This was bound to happen. You don’t buy a Ferrari to be eco-conscious and silent – you buy the cars to make a statement and feel the excitement through the way the car sounds and feels!

Tesla Self-Driving Technology Breaks Traffic Laws. Can the Feds Stop It? (Wall Street Journal, Ryan Felton) highlights yet another investigation into Tesla’s self-driving tech, aka Full Self-Driving (FSD), by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). There have been reports of crashes that have resulted in injuries and allegations that some cars have run red lights or turned into oncoming traffic. * SO WHAT? * The NHTSA has investigated Tesla so many times now but it seems that the agency is relatively toothless and it can only really act AFTER things go wrong because it doesn’t have the power to preapprove car technologies. Still, it has been a thorn in the side of Tesla for quite a while!

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Hackers steal Britons’ IDs by hijacking online age checks (Daily Telegraph, Matthew Field) shows that hackers have stolen 70,000 personal ID photos from Discord after they breached the defences of a customer service provider employed to verify users’ ages. I don’t think this is going to do much for public confidence in Starmer’s plans for digital IDs!

Elsewhere, Rishi Sunak takes Microsoft and Anthropic advisory jobs (Financial Times, Rafe Rosner-Uddin and George Hammond) shows that the former PM has landed himself some nice part-time jobs which he no doubt laid the ground for when he set up the AI safety summit in 2023 😜. It’s interesting to see that he’s going to be advising two rivals! Nice work if you can get

it – but he’s apparently going to donate the pay from these positions to The Richmond Project, a charity he formed with his wife.

Then in Lloyds and Close Brothers warn of extra costs for motor finance scandal (The Times, James Hurley) we see that the two companies are going to have to set aside more money than they’d originally planned in the car finance scandal, news of which hit both companies’ share prices. The FCA said on Tuesday this week that the motor finance industry may have to pay out £11bn in compensation but some analysts have said that the companies affected have only put aside about £2bn.

This does not look like the most efficient of places but it does look pretty amazing! A bit of noodle ASMR for you!