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The S&P 500 stock index has touched the milestone of 5,000 for the first time, setting a fresh record high as a narrow group of companies continued to drive the benchmark upwards. The basket of blue-chip US stocks rose as high as 5,000.4 on Thursday, seconds before closing the session 0.1 per cent higher at

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Equity purchases by Chinese banks and brokers’ international arms have helped push net flows to the country’s stock market in to positive territory for the first time this year, a shift that helps Beijing in

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the US foreign policy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. A US drone strike in Iraq killed the commander of a powerful Iranian-backed militia, the latest retaliatory move by American forces following an attack on a base that killed three US soldiers last month.

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Uber is courting one of its oldest foes, the London black-cab driver, as it looks to add a new taxi option to its fleet in the UK capital next year. San Francisco-based Uber has begun

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Geopolitics myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Reconcile, if you can, the following statements. First, universal laws are just another form of western empire. While the US and its allies lecture developing countries about such rich-world frills as human rights, China and Russia

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. China’s national chip champions expect to make next-generation smartphone processors as early as this year, despite US efforts to restrict their development of advanced technologies. The country’s biggest chipmaker SMIC has put together new semiconductor

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The Federal Reserve’s rate-setters still expect to make around three quarter-point rate cuts this year, its chair Jay Powell said in an interview that aired on Sunday. Powell told CBS’s 60 Minutes show that “almost

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. One of the UK’s two state-of-the-art aircraft carriers will not take part in the largest Nato exercise in Europe since the cold war after last-minute checks identified a problem with its propeller. The Royal Navy

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Chinese markets are feeling the heat from the latest drama surrounding two property developers: Evergrande and Donald Trump. The latter will potentially have more impact. A Hong Kong court this week ruled that, two years

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Donald Trump said he wanted to replace Jay Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve, accusing him of being “political” and predicting that he would cut interest rates to “help the Democrats” this year. Trump

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The cost of UK carbon emissions permits has fallen to an all-time low, raising fears it will weaken the incentive to build cleaner renewable energy sources. Futures contracts tracking the UK carbon price to December

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Chinese economy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Twenty-five years ago, I heard a clutch of top American financial officials, including Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, offer advice to their Japanese counterparts about how to tackle a property crisis. The essence of their

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Elon Musk has said Tesla will hold an investor vote on whether to move its corporate registration to Texas, in the wake of a court judgment in Delaware that voided his $56bn pay package. Tesla

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The US Federal Reserve held interest rates at a 23-year high on Wednesday, but gave little immediate indication of when it would begin cutting borrowing costs this year. The Federal Open Market Committee’s decision to

Outside the White House on Tuesday, Joe Biden walked over to the cameras to say that he had finally decided on the US response to a deadly attack on its troops in Jordan, after two days of talks with his national security team.  But the US president tempered that message with another: that he was

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The IMF has warned UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt against cutting taxes, arguing the country needs to curb public borrowing and prioritise spending in areas such as health, education and tackling climate change.  Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, IMF

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the German politics myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. The head of the Munich Security Conference has urged Germany to take a tough line on Israel, saying Berlin had a responsibility to call the Netanyahu government out when it violated international law. In an

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Paddy Power owner Flutter is planning to move its primary listing to New York in the latest blow to London’s shrinking equity market. If approved by shareholders at an annual meeting in May, Flutter’s transition

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Financial & markets regulation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Have we learnt anything from the great financial crisis of 2008? Or any number of banking crises that came before or since, right up to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and others

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Middle Eastern politics & society myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Three US service members have been killed by a drone attack on a military base carried out by “radical Iran-backed militant groups” near the Syria border, the White House said on Sunday.