(Bloomberg) --
Hello from London as we mark the autumn equinox, and sadly, a looming end to British summer time.
The big drop: It’s a year since the Truss government’s spending plans drove the pound to a record low and markets are again turning against sterling. For months, investors have been taking advantage of soaring interest rates, writes Alice Atkins. But last Thursday’s hold decision by the Bank of England has refocused attention on underlying issues. Some traders now think consumer prices may climb higher.
The big return: Remember the LibDems? Ed Davey’s Europhile party is hoping to play kingmaker — again. To oust the Tories, Labour’s Keir Starmer may need their help to form a coalition. Vince Cable, who was part of the joint government with the Tories in 2010, is predicting a 45% chance that Labour won’t win an outright majority at the next election. Read the story by Joe Mayes and Ellen Milligan here.
The big trip: Home Secretary Suella Braverman will travel to Washington on Monday to meet with the heads of the Department of Justice and Homeland Security as she seeks support abroad for the government’s hardline anti-migration push. Rishi Sunak promised to “stop the boats” across the English Channel but a multitude of legal and practical challenges remain in the way.
The big numbers: Policymakers on both side of the Atlantic are likely to take comfort this week from a slowdown in key underlying measures of consumer-price growth. The annual core metric that strips out food and energy from the Fed’s preferred inflation measure may have fallen below 4% in August for the first time in nearly two years. Meanwhile the euro region’s own annual gauge of price growth is expected to have slowed to 4.8% in September — a 12-month low. And in the UK, final GDP data for the second quarter will be released on Friday.
The big tunnel: With construction 90% complete, the £4.5 billion Tideway Tunnel is designed to stop sewage overflows and deliver a cleaner Thames for the capital. Brendan Murray reports how crews are preparing to cap at ground level several shafts the size of missile silos. They’ll be sealed off to humans for at least a decade. Future maintenance to inspect for fatbergs and other subterranean problems will be done via drones.
The big win: Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa broke the women’s world record by more than two minutes today at the Berlin Marathon. She ran 2 hours, 11 minutes and 53 seconds to smash the previous record of 2:14:04 set by Brigid Kotsgei in Chicago back in 2019.
ICYM Our Big Take: These ex-Goldman bankers are making a controversial bet on King Coal. Bloomberg’s Alastair Marsh, Archie Hunter and Todd Gillespie explain how a little-known London commodities newcomer made its founders very, very rich. In its first eight years, Javelin Global Commodities has grown to an equity value of more than $1 billion and become the biggest exporter of US coal.
And finally: Get caught up on the latest bulletins with Bloomberg’s News Now. It’s a rolling update in podcast format on the Terminal and web that’s a perfect primer for a return to your desk on Monday.
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