Thursday 27/08/26

US designates Palestine Action a ‘terrorist group’ (Financial Times, Rachel Rees and Robert Wright) highlights the US government decision to classify Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, saying that it had “materially assisted, sponsored or provided financial, material or technological support for, or goods and services to or in support of, an act of terrorism”. This follows the UK government’s decision to ban it in July last year. This means that any of the group’s US-held assets will be frozen and all transactions with it by people in the US will be banned.

Back home, Andy Burnham pledges to ‘take pressure off’ business ahead of October Budget (Financial Times, George Parker) suggests that the new PM is trying to show willing by making some mildly encouraging noises about helping businesses, Pubs, bars and hotels report ‘Burnham bounce’ in optimism but call for further tax relief (The Guardian, Rob Davies) shows that trade bodies including British Beer & Pubs Association, UK Hospitality, the British Institute of Innkeeping and Hospitality Ulster say that their members are feeling more optimistic after Burnham eased pressure a bit on business rates and Business confidence given a boost by the Burnham bounce (The Times, Jack Barnett) cites a Barclays survey which reflects the same thing – that business leaders are feeling more confident in both their own finances and the wider UK economy. * SO WHAT? * This is all lovely, but let’s face it, the Budget on October 28th is going to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of more sustained sentiment. Until then, Burnham can say all he likes – it won’t mean anything if he doesn’t deliver. Rising external pressures would suggest that he’s got an incredibly difficult balancing act to perform.

In climate news, Hundreds reported missing after flash flood on Nepal border with China (Financial Times, Andres Schipani) highlights another natural disaster as a massive flash flood swept away settlements on the Nepal-China border. So far 162 deaths have been reported but the toll is likely to be much higher. The rescue operation continues…

El Niño’s looming threat to the global food system (Financial Times, the editorial board) takes

a look at the effect that El Niño is having – and will have – on food production and trade. The El Niño climate pattern, which increases temperatures and the risk of extreme weather around the world every two to seven years on average, can actually last for up to 18 months. The latest cycle started in June but there are fears that this could be the strongest El Niño “in living memory”. Production of coffee and cocoa across West Africa and South America will be hit, as will rice cultivation across Asia. Transport of goods is already being affected by lower water levels – the Panama Canal has already had to put restrictions in place – but droughts could also mean that hydroelectric and nuclear power generation could take a hit. All o this could put further upward pressure on energy prices and this would mean that inflation is likely to stay higher for longer. * SO WHAT? * If we assume that the new weather patterns are going to become the norm rather than the exception then everyone needs to be better prepared for being able to withstand ongoing big shocks to food supplies. This means that industries would need to invest in early warning systems, smart-farming tech (including things like soil-moisture sensors) and and climate-resilient crops. Governments will have to pay more attention to food stocks and become more self-sufficient in their supply chains whilst being more willing to share weather data and to limit trade restrictions on food and agricultural inputs.

Then in Plug-in balcony solar panels to go on sale in UK for first time (The Guardian, Jillian Ambrose) we see that plug-in solar panels will be going on sale today in the UK after having already been readily available in Spain and Germany, where they have become very popular. They will cost from about £400-£500 and you will be able to get them from Argos initially, to be followed in the coming weeks by Amazon, Currys, B&Q and Screwfix. These panels can be plugged into a standard wall socket and will enable power generation from a balcony, terrace, shed roof or other outdoor space. Not everywhere will be suitable, but for those who are able to use them they can start generating straight away! * SO WHAT? * This sounds like a nice idea that can help at a time when everyone could do with a bit of help to rein in electricity bills!

Nvidia projects 70% sales growth next year as it rebuts ‘circular financing’ criticism (Financial Times, Michael Acton) shows that the company yet again beat Wall Street expectations in the latest quarter and jacked up its expectations for chip sales next year. The company’s CFO said that the company believes that customer demand would double but revenues would be limited by supply restrictions. The company added that AWS has agreed to start using an additional 2m of its latest GPUs this quarter – and Nvidia’s share price increased by 4% on the news. It also batted away worries about “circular financing” by saying that risks were limited because of strong demand for computing power.

Then in Anthropic agrees $45bn AI data centre deal with UK start-up Nscale (Financial Times, Ryan McMorrow) we see that the AI giant has signed a deal with UK cloud computing start-up Nscale to rent capacity from its data centre in West Virginia over a period of six years. * SO WHAT? * This is just the latest of a number of deals that Anthropic has struck to increase its processing power. Nscale is aiming to have its own IPO, potentially as soon as next month and already has backing from Nvidia, Dell and Nokia, among others.

Meta restricts Instagram access under $18bn child safety settlement (Daily Telegraph, James Titcomb and James Warrington) highlights a major development in that the social media giant has agreed to pay a $16.68bn settlement to settle its legal battle with 47 states, the District of Columbia and three US territories along with a separate $1bn settlement with Texas. The

settlement came just as the trial was getting underway. Meta also agreed to put in place default daily limits and night-time blocks for teenage users of some of its social media apps and strengthen its age assurance systems to prevent kids from accessing inappropriate content. Interestingly, the company said that it would pay out $5.3bn of the settlement only if YouTube and TikTok each agreed to pay the same sum and implement their own limit and user restrictions. The settlement will be paid out annually over 10 years. Tech faces its ‘Big Tobacco’ moment as Meta settles addiction case (Daily Telegraph, James Titcomb) observes that this is a bit of a let off for the company because the agreement is less than 10% of the $200bn that the state prosecutors said they were going for and way less than the $1.4tn that Meta’s own legal team said it would have had to pay if it had lost. Meanwhile, Private schools ban Meta smart glasses amid bullying fears (Daily Telegraph, James Titcomb) highlights another bit of negative news for Meta – that a number of private, boarding and grammar schools in the UK have banned its smart glasses due to safeguarding concerns. * SO WHAT? * Meta’s having a tough time at the moment – however, I think that they got off lightly in the US lawsuit. I guess that everyone else now from around is going to jump on this with their own lawsuits. Critics pointed out that this was a paltry sum for Meta in the scheme of things – one said that it was “roughly 10 days of Meta’s annual profit” but it is arguably better than nothing and comes NOW rather than the years and years it took to squeeze payments out of tobacco companies to get compensation for smokers.

Although what I’m about to talk about is US retailers, I think that it reflects very well the current state of the American consumer! Urban Outfitters Sales Rise as Free People Strength Continues (Wall Street Journal, Kelly Cloonan) shows that the company posted decent Q2 and sales thanks to its Free People brand doing well, Abercrombie Lifts Outlook as Profit, Sales Rise (Wall Street Journal, Connor Hart) also had a great quarter and was confident enough to raise its full-year forecasts while Kohl’s Says Lower-Earning Shoppers Are Feeling Pinched (Wall Street Journal, Katherine Hamilton) highlighted the department store chain’s more muted assessment as it maintained that its shoppers are feeling the pinch from higher fuel prices which, in turn, has put pressure on discretionary spending. Having said that, Bath & Body Works Is Still Cautious Despite Signs of Turnaround (Wall Street Journal, Katherine Hamilton) shows that the soaps and fragrance retailer had a better quarter as its digital business returned to growth for the first time in five years. Perhaps this was due to the whole thing about consumers buying “affordable luxury” items.

In the UK, Homebuyers on the rise but face £18,000 bill due to mortage rates (The Times, Charlotte Bend) cites the latest data from Zoopla which shows that homebuyers appear to be dipping their toes back in the property market after a slow summer. However, they are having to pay an extra £18,200 on average because of higher mortgage rates. Search activity is rising – so that sounds like good news…

Meanwhile, Burnham signals budget support after 4% rise in energy price cap (The Times, Geraldine Scott, Steven Swinford and Ben Clatworthy) shows that the PM dropped hints that he may use the October budget to help lower energy bills as Ofgem said yesterday that the energy price cap would go up by 4% in October. We’ll have to see whether this comes true! Good news for many UK consumers.

In a quick scoot around some of today’s other interesting stories, Launch date for London robotaxis slips amid TfL uncertainty (Financial Times, Tim Bradshaw and Kana Inagaki) shows that Waymo, Wayve and Baidu are all facing regulatory or technical barriers at the moment, so it seems that the launch of a commercial service this year is looking unlikely. Meanwhile, ‘Temu Range Rovers’ are taking over Britain (Daily Telegraph, Christopher Jasper) shows that the Jaecoo 7, which looks pretty similar to Range Rover’s more expensive Velar and Evoque models, was the best selling car in the UK in March! It’s been in the UK’s top 10 for 12 months but it was comfortably the best-seller. The Chinese car makers continue to make progress…

Then in Vanguard and Victory Capital bet on scale as fund industry consolidates (Financial Times, Harriet Clarfelt) we see that index tracking giant Vanduard announced that it would buy AI-wealth platform Altruist for an undisclosed sum while investment house Victory Capital announced that it would buy asset manager First Eagle for $7bn. * SO WHAT? * 2026 really is proving to be a cracking year for M&A! According to Dealogic, global asset management deal volumes have already hit $53.8bn to date. This is the highest number since at least 1995!

This pastry is pretty spectacular! Bravo 👏! I’ve never seen anything like it! Watching this is like pastry/croissant ASMR 😁