Good morning. Emmanuel Macron gives outgoing Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu 48 hours to negotiate with France’s parties. One billionaire is sounding cautious about the surge in gold prices. And Pope Leo is clipping the powers of the Vatican Bank. Listen to the day’s top stories.
— Teo Chian Wei
French President Emmanuel Macron gave his outgoing prime minister, Sebastien Lecornu, 48 hours to negotiate with political parties in a last-ditch effort to prevent the country from falling deeper into crisis. French bond futures underperformed German counterparts in Asian trading. Gold pushed closer to $4,000 an ounce. Check out our Markets Today live blog for all the latest news and analysis relevant to UK assets.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to get help on her plans to patch up the UK’s multi-billion-pound budgetary black hole from an unlikely quarter: inflation. By lifting the taxable value of incomes, profits and prices in cash terms, rising prices will deliver a much-needed net £5 billion boost to the chancellor’s plans, an analysis shows.
The Irish government is to deliver its toughest budget in years. Finance Minster Paschal Donohoe, who is expected to unveil a €9.4 billion tax and spending package today, has said he is prioritizing long-term capital investment over the one-off measures it has given to taxpayers in recent budgets.
Lagarde. Photographer: Lina Selg/Bloomberg
Christine Lagarde sees the European Central Bank nearing its 2% inflation target and expects economic growth to pick up in 2026. She told EU lawmakers that sluggish exports and a stronger euro are expected to hold growth back for the remainder of the year.
Citadel’s Ken Griffin said investors are starting to view gold as a safer asset than the dollar, a development that’s “really concerning” to the billionaire investor.
“We’re seeing substantial asset inflation away from the dollar as people are looking for ways to effectively de-dollarize, or de-risk their portfolios vis-a-vis US sovereign risk,” Griffin said in an interview with Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua.
The lingering federal government shutdown and the prospect of potential rate cuts helped propel the precious metal to a record. This year, investors have been betting more on gold, silver and Bitcoin, in what’s been called the “debasement trade.”
The US is seeing fiscal and monetary stimulus that’s more akin to what normally happens during a recession, which is stoking markets, Griffin said.
Greenhushing—in which companies get on with the task of decarbonizing without boasting about it—is coming for carbon removal, Lara Williams writes. It reflects a landscape where climate action can only be discussed sotto voce and adds both a challenge and a potential direction for the important, but nascent, carbon-removal industry.
Pope Leo is shaking things up by limiting the Vatican Bank’s role in managing the Holy See’s funds. The move aims to spread responsibility across various institutions, addressing past scandals and striving for transparency.
