Thursday 19/06/25

Donald Trump says he ‘may or may not’ strike Iran (Financial Times, Steff Chavez and Bita Ghaffari) shows that the president is either keeping everyone guessing/doesn’t know what to do/is hoping that the situation resolves itself and added that next week would be “very big” in determining subsequent developments. This came after Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Washington of “irreparable damage” if America got involved. Meanwhile, Donald Trump edges closer to Iran strike as military assets move into position (Financial Times, Steff Chavez) shows that the USS Nimitz, one of the US’s 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, left the South China Sea and headed towards the Middle East with its strike group of three guided-missile destroyers to join another strike group and other destroyers in the region. They will take about a week to arrive, but it seems like Trump is getting his ducks in a row. This is a clear sign that Trump is seriously considering joining forces with Israel against Iran. If the US got involved, it’s likely that they would want to strike the Iranian nuclear facility of Fordow with its bunker-busting bombs. Steve Bannon warns Donald Trump Iran strike would ‘tear’ apart the US (Financial Times, Lauren Fedor) shows that Trump’s former chief strategist does not want the president to involve the US military in another war in the Middle East, saying that “We can’t have another Iraq”. * SO WHAT? * Trump is in a difficult position here. On the one hand, he promised his MAGA base that he would put America first and no longer engage in so-called “forever wars” but then the latest opinion poll showed that the majority of his supporters are opposed to the US striking Iran. Then on the other hand, he has essentially been handed a unique opportunity to cripple Iran’s nuclear bomb ambitions…*** NEWS JUST IN – Trump approves Iran attack plans (Daily Telegraph) shows that the president has approved attack plans to military chiefs in the White House’s situation room but “has not made a final decision”. ***

Meanwhile, Federal Reserve holds interest rates, defying Trump’s demand to lower them (The Guardian, Callum Jones) shows that the Fed kept US interest rates on hold yesterday in the

4.25-4.5% range but said that they were considering making two cuts this year. This goes against Trump’s wishes, because the president wants immediate rate cuts. Guessing that Powell would dig his heels in prior to the announcement of the decision, he accused the Fed chief of being “a political guy who’s not a smart person”.

Back home, UK inflation eases slightly to 3.4% as food price rises offset transport cost falls (The Guardian, Phillip Inman) cites the latest inflation figures which weakened slightly last month thanks to sharp drops in air fares and petrol prices taking the edge off the jump in annual food inflation. * SO WHAT? * This is clearly something that the Bank of England needs to take into account when it makes its interest rate decision later today but the markets are expecting interest rates to remain unchanged at 4.25%.

In Starmer puts UK cabinet on alert for potential US attack on Iran (Financial Times, George Parker, David Sheppard and Charles Clover) we see that Starmer is preparing the ground for potentially joining up with the US in attacking Iran. We’ve stayed out of the Israel-Iran war thus far, but it clearly looks like this may change. For the moment, Starmer has continued to call for “de-escalation”.

Then on more mundane matters, HS2 delayed beyond 2033 as minister attacks ‘appalling mess’ (The Guardian, Gwyn Topham) shows that the government has delayed the completion of HS2 until after 2033, obviously blaming the previous government. I think that this will be greeted with a nationwide eye-roll as yet another big public sector project overruns and goes over-budget. TBF, it must be incredibly hard to cost-up such an extensive project but then again you could argue that people are actually paid to do this and get it right…

OpenAI made the headlines for a few reasons today! Microsoft prepared to walk away from high-stakes OpenAI talks (Financial Times, Cristina Criddle, Tabby Kinder, Rafe Uddin and George Hammond) shows that the software giant is apparently prepared to walk away from its multibillion-dollar alliance with OpenAI due to strategic differences. If it walked away, the current contract would allow Microsoft access to OpenAI’s tech until 2030 but talks are ongoing. * SO WHAT? * OpenAI needs to hammer a deal out with Microsoft to transition from a non-profit organisation to a for-profit one which could then lead to more funding and potentially an IPO. Microsoft has to approve this move by the end of the year or OpenAI could lose billions in funding from other investors. One of the sticking points has been what slice of OpenAI it should get in return for the $13bn+ it has invested in the company to date. Another has been Microsoft’s exclusive access to OpenAI’s technology. Microsoft has been weaning itself off reliance on OpenAI in recent months, making xAI’s Grok available to cloud computing customers, for instance.

OpenAI boss accuses Meta of trying to poach staff with $100m sign-on bonuses (The Guardian, Robert Booth) shows that OpenAI’s Sam Altman is accusing Meta of trying to poach his top AI experts with things like signing bonuses of $100m as everyone chases after the same

pool of talent. Altman spoke about this in a podcast on Tuesday but this has not been confirmed by Meta. * SO WHAT? * This comes after recent reports that Anthropic is poaching talent from OpenAI and DeepMind. With crazy pay offers like the one I mentioned above, it may just be cheaper for tech companies to buy rivals rather than individuals!

Then in Netflix to start streaming live TV for the first time (Daily Telegraph, James Warrington) we see that Netflix is going to start broadcasting live TV from France’s biggest commercial broadcaster TF1 that will allow subscribers in the country to watch live TV. * SO WHAT? * This is a very interesting development and comes at a time when terrestrial broadcasters are losing audiences. You would have thought that similar deals will now be struck with the likes of BBC, ITV and Channel 4 as this could bring in much needed revenues for the broadcasters while Netflix will gain access to  decent content. The deal with TF1 is the first time that a streaming channel will have carried live channels in full, though! Actually, as time goes on you would have thought that this kind of deal will do wonders for sales of VPN sellers like NordVPN and Surfshark.

House prices fall after stamp duty changes, but rebound expected (The Times, Tom Howard) cites the latest data for April from the ONS which shows that house prices fell for the first time since December 2023 thanks to the increase in stamp duty costs. Buyers got into a frenzy to beat the stamp duty deadline of March 31st in order to save a potential £11,250 in fees, which meant that April got a bit quieter, hence the slight fall. * SO WHAT? * The ONS figures are watched very closely because they use Land Registry figures of actual sale prices as opposed to asking prices or mortgage approvals. What this data is saying matches up with what estate agents have been saying in recent months, that they’ve had a busier February and March this year than they’ve had for the past three! Economists expect prices to rebound from here though…

Non-doms’ retreat hits London’s prime housing market (Financial Times, Maisie Grice) cites a separate bit of research from London property firm LonRes which shows that the number of deals done in London’s prime housing market last month fell sharply as international buyers lost interest. * SO WHAT? * This section of the market, with properties costing over £5m, has been

particularly badly hit by the falling number of non-dom buyers who have traditionally been big in this segment. They have either moved out of the country already or are considering doing so, hence the lack of interest in buying properties.

Then in US housing construction falls to 5-year low as tariffs weigh on sector (Financial Times, Stephanie Stacey) we see that the building of residential properties in the US hit a new low in May – its lowest since Covid brought a halt to construction projects in 2020 – thanks to builders having to contend with volatiles tariffs on imported materials, higher mortgages rates and ongoing high inventory levels. Permits for new construction also fell to their lowest level since June 2020. * SO WHAT? * This is yet another example of the effect of Trump’s tariffs. When faced with uncertainty and volatility, businesses are just hunkering down to wait for the storm to blow over. Separately, a survey published on Tuesday by the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo, showed that homebuilder sentiment has hit its lowest level since 2022!

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, NatWest rules out bidding for TSB (Financial Times, Akila Quinio, Simon Foy, Ivan Levingston and Arash Massoudi) shows that NatWest has decided to step away from the bidding process for TSB but Banco Santander eyes deal to buy TSB (The Times, Helen Cahill) contends that Spanish bank Santander is potentially looking at merging its UK business with Sabadell’s (Sabadell owns TSB). Banco Santander bought the Alliance & Leicester, Abbey National and Bradford & Bingley franchises in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, which then became Santander UK.

Then in Waymo Wants to Bring Its Robotaxis to New York City (Wall Street Journal, Katherine Blunt) we see that Waymo is keen to operate in the Big Apple but faces a number of legal and other hurdles to its aspirations taking driverless taxis there. This is pretty interesting given the recent push to operate driverless taxis services in the UK. At the moment, vehicles are not allowed to operate without a human at the wheel in New York under state law but Waymo is pushing to change this. If it managed to surmount this, its driverless tech would be the first to drive its streets – and the rewards could be considerable.

The lady in this video is dishing out what looks like the biggest jacket potato I have ever seen 😮…with “a little bit of coleslaw” 🤣! I think I’d be in a food coma after this!!! BTW – important question here – to eat the skin of the jacket potato or not?? I am an EATER of the potato skin. I think the taste is great and believe that a lot of the nutrients are in the skin…