News updates from July 8: Biden tells congressional Democrats he will stay in race; French stocks close lower after leftwing surge thwarts far right

A former employee of the World Economic Forum has sued the Swiss non-profit, which runs a high-profile conference each year in Davos, and its chair, Klaus Schwab, for discrimination.

The former employee, Topaz Smith, who is a Black woman, alleged that during her nearly two years at the forum she was denied professional opportunities because of her race and gender. The lawsuit, which was filed in New York on Monday, claimed that the forum has “a scofflaw approach to anti-discrimination laws, permitting an atmosphere that is hostile to women and Black employees”.

In one instance, Smith alleged, she was told by a white manager to think of her boss, who was also white, as her “master”. Smith said public-facing opportunities at the Davos conference were typically reserved for white employees.

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The S&P 500 notched up its longest winning streak in more than five months, despite a relatively muted day of trading on Wall Street that still left the index at a record high.

Wall Street’s benchmark equities index ended Monday’s session 0.1 per cent higher, notching up its fourth record closing high in a row. That represented part of a five-session winning streak, its longest run since late January.

The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.3 per cent to again finish at a record high. The tech-heavy index’s five-session winning streak was its longest since mid-June.

Short-term US debt sold-off after a recent rally. The yield on the policy-sensitive two-year Treasury, which moves in the opposite direction the asset’s price, lifted off Friday’s three-month low, rising 0.03 percentage points to 4.63 per cent.

The dollar, when measured against a basket of peer currencies, rose, ending a four-session losing streak.

Nato allies are not seeking reassurance about US President Joe Biden’s health, the White House said Monday.

Dozens of world leaders are set to arrive in Washington for the 75th Nato summit. Biden will host a dinner on Wednesday for attending presidents and prime ministers at the White House and will hold a press conference on Thursday as questions swirl about his health and stamina after a poor performance debate late last month.

“We’re not picking up any signs of that from our allies at all. Quite the contrary,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Monday. “They’re very excited about this summit.”

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is rethinking its proposed new rules on liquidity and pricing for mutual funds, in a victory for asset managers who had argued that the regulations would drive away customers and reduce investor choice.

The SEC on Monday said in a regulatory filing made public that the Division of Investment Management was considering recommending that the rules first put out for comment in 2022 be reproposed, essentially starting the process over.

A spokesman for the Investment Company Institute, an industry lobby group, said the announcement was “encouraging”, because the original proposal was “unworkable in the US, based on flawed reasoning, and would have put the investments of millions of Americans at risk.”

The move comes one month after a federal appeals court ruled that the SEC had overstepped its authority on proposed rules involving private fund disclosures.

US stocks hovered close to record highs at the start of a week that will include commentary from the Federal Reserve’s chair as well as important inflation data.

The benchmark S&P 500 hit an intraday high earlier in the session, before trimming gains to be up by less than 0.1 per cent during Monday afternoon trading. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.2 per cent, with three Magnificent Seven tech groups rising. The small cap focused Russell 2000 rose 0.7 per cent.

Oil prices fell, with international benchmark Brent crude falling 1 per cent to $85.67 a barrel. US marker West Texas Intermediate fell 1.2 per cent to $82.18 a barrel.

Fed chair Jay Powell is due to address Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday, potentially providing traders with an opportunity to glean hints on the future direction of interest rates. Inflation data for June will be released on Thursday.

The chair of the Conservatives has resigned after the UK’s most successful political party suffered its worst defeat in history in last week’s election. 

Richard Holden, MP for Basildon and Billericay, joined former foreign secretary Lord David Cameron in tendering their resignations to Tory leader Rishi Sunak.

The party returned 121 MPs in this year’s election, down from 365 in the 2019 contest. 

Holden has been replaced on an interim basis by Richard Fuller, MP for North Bedfordshire. Kemi Badenoch, a Tory leadership hopeful, has been appointed shadow levelling up secretary. 

Sequoia Capital’s former China unit has raised an Rmb18bn ($2.5bn) fund, defying a fundraising freeze that has hit rivals and building its war chest to invest in technology start-ups in the country.

HongShan, the Beijing-based group that split off last year from one of the world’s largest venture capital firms over geopolitical issues, successfully closed the renminbi fund in March, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

It is the largest fundraising by a privately owned VC firm in China in the past year, marking the ongoing influence commanded by its founder Neil Shen, widely considered the country’s most powerful tech investor.

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US corporate bankruptcy filings jumped last month to 75, their highest level since at least early 2020, according to figures from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Companies to have filed for bankruptcy in June included the electric-vehicle maker Fisker Group and its parent organisation, along with names including Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, Lodging Enterprises and Nevada Cooper, S&P’s analysis shows.

A total 346 filings have been counted so far in 2024, the largest year-to-date total since 2010, concentrated in the consumer discretionary and healthcare sectors.

French stocks closed lower on Monday, erasing earlier gains as traders assessed how the French election results would affect its economy.

The Cac 40 in Paris lost 0.6 per cent, with luxury goods groups Kering and LVMH among the worst performing stocks on the day. Germany’s Dax rose less than 0.1 per cent and the region-wide Stoxx Europe 600 was steady. London’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.1 per cent while the mid-cap FTSE 250 rose less than 0.1 per cent. 

Across the Atlantic, Wall Street’s blue-chip S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.1 per cent and 0.3 per cent, respectively, in late morning trade in New York.

More than 2mn households were left without power and one person was killed in Texas on Monday as Hurricane Beryl made landfall on the US Gulf coast.

The National Hurricane Center warned of “life-threatening storm surge, damaging wind gusts and flooding rainfall” as Beryl battered the eastern part of the state.

There were 2.3mn power cuts reported by 10am local time, according to poweroutage.us, while Harris county officials said that a 53-year-old man had died after a tree fell on his house.

Beryl wrought destruction across the Caribbean last week and is the earliest hurricane on record to develop into a category five storm. It weakened as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico and hit Texas as a category one storm.

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French stocks gave up earlier gains in afternoon trade as leftwing parties jostled to lead the country’s next government.

The Cac 40 was 0.4 per cent lower just after 4.30pm in Paris, with declines for consumer cyclicals including Kering and LVMH offsetting gains for healthcare groups and industrials. The region-wide Stoxx Europe 600 crept up 0.1 per cent.

French equities had rallied earlier in the session after the leftist Nouveau Front Populaire bloc won the most parliamentary seats in the second round of legislative elections on Sunday.

Devon Energy has agreed a $5bn transaction to buy a suite of oil assets in North Dakota amid growing pressure on the company to strike a deal or risk becoming a target.

The Oklahoma-based oil producer has been eager to bulk up its asset base as an M&A wave sweeps across the US shale patch, but it has thus far failed to clinch a major acquisition. Devon recently lost out to ConocoPhillips in a battle to buy Marathon Oil.

Analysts have warned that unless Devon secures a big deal soon the $30bn company would become vulnerable to a takeover bid itself as the industry continues to consolidate.

Under Monday’s agreement, Devon will acquire the Bakken shale assets of Grayson Mill Energy, backed by private equity group EnCap, for $3.25bn in cash and $1.75bn in stock.

Reform UK raised more money than any other major party in the penultimate week of the general election campaign.

The Electoral Commission published figures on Monday that showed the right-wing party raised more than £590,000 in large donations between June 20 and 26. It went on to secure five seats in last Thursday’s election.

In total, parties raised more than £2mn in the period.

Reform’s figure included £200,000 from Zia Yusuf, co-founder of concierge app Velocity Black.

The Liberal Democrats took £250,000 from businessman Derek Webb, who donated the same amount to Labour in January.

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Lord David Cameron is to step back from frontline politics and will be replaced by Andrew Mitchell as the UK’s shadow foreign secretary, according to senior Tories.

Rishi Sunak is appointing a shadow ministerial team from his depleted ranks of 121 MPs to form an opposition to Sir Keir Starmer’s new government.

Cameron, the former prime minister who returned to government last year for a brief second act in his political career, will be replaced by Mitchell, the former deputy foreign secretary. Sunak’s spokesperson has been approached for comment.

The Bank of England has appointed Andrea Enria, a veteran European banking watchdog leader, as adviser to its main supervisory arm the Prudential Regulation Authority.

Enria will bring almost 40 years’ experience in overseeing the biggest EU banks, having stepped down as chair of the European Central Bank’s supervisory board at the end of last year. 

He had previously been the European Banking Authority’s first leader after it was created in 2011 to draw up regulation for EU banks and before that he held several positions at the Banca d’Italia and the ECB.

The BoE said: “Andrea’s extensive global experience of financial regulation and supervision will make a useful contribution to the PRA’s work”.

US stocks rose to fresh record highs in early trade on Monday ahead of a busy week of economic data releases and speeches by top Federal Reserve officials.

Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 gained 0.2 per cent shortly after the opening bell in New York, boosted by banks and industrials. The tech-dominated Nasdaq Composite also added 0.1 per cent. Both indices are trading at all-time highs.

The main event for investors this week comes on Thursday, when economists expect figures to show that annual consumer price inflation hit 3.1 per cent in June, down from 3.3 per cent in May. Markets currently expect two interest rate cuts this year, with the first in September or November.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has condemned Monday’s Russian missile attacks on a Kyiv hospital and other civilian buildings, during a news conference held jointly with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw. 

“All those who gave orders to strike residential buildings, hospitals, will be held responsible,” Zelenskyy said on Monday, after a minute of silence to honour the victims. “It is obvious that everything that was destroyed by Russian terrorists will be rebuilt by us.”

He said that following the attacks, Ukraine had requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to decide how to respond to Russia’s latest attack on civilian targets. 

UK business groups have welcomed Rachel Reeves’ first speech as chancellor in which she announced a “decade of national renewal”.

Stephen Phipson, chief executive of the manufacturers’ organisation Make UK, said: “Industry will welcome such a bold statement of intent”

“Turning the growth taps on will not be easy in the current uncertain international climate . . . but industry will commend this announcement that makes quite clear that it is the laser-like focus of the new government,” he added.

Rain Newton-Smith, chief executive of the CBI, said: “Firms will welcome the chancellor wasting no time in committing to tackle the burdensome and time-consuming planning processes that are holding back critical investments.”

The UK’s tight labour market will keep inflation above target “for quite some time”, making it preferable to delay cutting interest rates until it is clear price pressures have subsided, a Bank of England rate setter will say in a speech later on Monday.

Jonathan Haskel, one of the more hawkish voices on the BoE’s nine member monetary policy committee, will say that it was “encouraging” that headline inflation fell back to the BoE’s 2 per cent target in May but that this drop would be temporary.

“Huge shocks” to the UK’s wage-price system are still playing out and data deficiencies mean that judging the true state of the jobs market is “critical and difficult,” Haskel will say in a speech to be delivered at King’s College London.

Bond fund manager Jim Leaviss is leaving M&G after almost three decades in the industry to move into academia, according to people familiar with the company.

Leaviss, who is chief investment officer of fixed income at the asset manager, will leave in the coming months to start a Masters in the History of Art in October.

M&G will be announcing Leaviss’ replacement shortly.

French economy minister Bruno Le Maire warned that the country could slip into a financial crisis if the high-spending, high-tax political programme embraced by the leftwing Nouveau Front Populaire alliance is put into action.

The NFP won the biggest share of seats in parliament in the legislative election on Sunday, although the alliance remains far from an outright majority.

Le Maire, who stays in the French cabinet for now as negotiations over a new government begin, took aim at the NFP on X, though he also warned of other risks for France, such as an “ideological fracture” of the country and a scenario of complete blockage if no consensus government can be found.

French President Emmanuel Macron refused to accept prime minister Gabriel Attal’s resignation on Monday, after his centrist alliance came second by seat numbers in a legislative election that delivered a hung parliament.

The move had been widely expected, with Attal saying on Sunday night he was willing to stay on in a caretaker position if needed. Parties on the left and right are jostling to see what alliances can be forged to try to form a government, although no single bloc is close to an outright majority in France’s lower house.

“The president has asked Gabriel Attal to remain prime minister for the time being in order to ensure the country’s stability,” the Élysée Palace said.

Rachel Reeves plans to use a Treasury analysis of the Labour government’s “inheritance” from Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government to pave the way for “difficult decisions” in an autumn Budget.

Speaking at the Treasury, the new chancellor stressed the importance of the review. “I’ve asked Treasury officials this weekend to provide an update on the state of the public finances and the inheritance,” she said.

“I will present that to parliament before the end of this month.” Reeves said the Labour government faced “the worst set of circumstances since the second world war”, adding that “difficult decisions” lay ahead.

Rachel Reeves, chancellor, has ruled out any change to the way the Bank of England pays interest on commercial banks’ reserves.

There had been suggestions that interest rates could be cut on tiers of the reserves to release more cash for public spending, but Reeves told the FT:  “I’ve got no intention on changing the way the reserves are treated and the interest paid on those reserves.”

Reeves said the Office for Budget Responsibility would provide its latest assessment of Britain’s growth prospects alongside an autumn Budget. She said she would set out the date for the Budget before MPs rise for their summer recess at the end of July.

Reeves described the Tory party as an “anti-growth coalition” which had been roundly rejected by the electorate last week.

She said that achieving economic growth was crucial to improving people’s living standards and reviving town centres.

The chancellor said that some international investors had doubted in recent years whether Britain was a “safe haven” for investment: “I want that to change.”

Emily Thornberry has expressed surprise at Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to overlook her for a post in government, after he decided to appoint human rights lawyer Richard Hermer as attorney-general.

The former shadow attorney-general said in a statement on X that she was “very sorry and surprised” not to be appointed to the role but said newly anointed peer Hermer was a much more “accomplished lawyer”.

Separately, Nick Thomas-Symonds has been appointed minister responsible for European relations, while crossbench peer Lord Peter Hendy, chair of Network Rail, has been made a transport minister.

Lord Spencer Livermore, a former adviser to Gordon Brown, has been made financial secretary to the Treasury.

Angela Rayner, deputy prime minister, will write to local authorities and the Office for Investments to ensure that any major planning decisions are brought to her attention, the chancellor announced on Monday.

There will be reviews of greenbelt boundaries to prioritise brownfield land development to help meet housing targets, Rachel Reeves said. 

The chancellor said the transport and energy secretaries would prioritise decisions on infrastructure projects which had been sitting unresolved for too long. 

“I know there will be opposition to this, I’m not naive about that, I know there will be trade-offs . . . but we will not succumb to a status quo that responds to the existence of trade-offs by always saying no,” she said. “We will make those tough decisions to realise that mandate.”

She said the new Labour government had done more to unblock the planning system in the past 72 hours than the Tory government had done in 14 years. 

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she had created a growth delivery unit at the Treasury and that a new “growth mission board” would meet before the end of the month to drive the agenda across government.

“The work towards a decade of national renewal has begun,” Reeves said in her speech at the Treasury, indicating the ambition of the new Labour government to carry out its agenda across two parliamentary terms.

“We were elected on a mandate to get things done and to get Britain building again,” she said.

Rachel Reeves said she would put planning reform at the centre of the government’s plans and would “grasp the nettle” to get more homes built. “Planning has become a byword for political timidity in the face of vested interests,” she said in a speech at the Treasury.

The chancellor said she would take immediate action to “kick-start economic growth” to build the infrastructure needed by the UK, including 1.5m new homes over the next five years.

The government will reform the National Planning Policy Framework by the end of the month, restoring mandatory housing targets, and will also end the de facto ban on onshore wind farms in England.

Reeves said that planning decisions would “in the first instance” be in the hands of local residents but said that with housing targets the answer could not always be no. 

Rachel Reeves has ordered an assessment of state spending so that she can “understand the full extent of our challenge”.

“We face a legacy of 14 years of chaos and economic irresponsibility, that is why over the weekend I instructed Treasury officials to provide an assessment of the state of our spending,” she said in a speech at the Treasury. The analysis will be presented before the end of the month.

She also said she would not hesitate to take difficult decisions to create economic growth: “It is now our national mission. There is no time to waste,” she said.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, and her Italian ally, Matteo Salvini, are both joining their parties’ European lawmakers into the eurosceptic Patriots for Europe bloc led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The accessions are set to make the group the third-largest political family in the European Parliament, eclipsing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists.

Zoltan Kovacs,  a spokesman for Orban, announced that Le Pen, and the 30 European lawmakers of her National Rally, are joining Orban’s family on X, the social media platform. “Let’s join forces and fight together for a better future,” he said in his post, though Le Pen had yet to officially announce her decision.

Kovac’s  social media post came shortly after Salvini confirmed that the eight European lawmakers from his far-right League were joining the Patriots group later today to “change Europe.” 

The future of France hangs in the balance, leaving the National Assembly fractured and no clear path to a majority for any of the major political blocs.

At 12pm BST today, three FT experts will be poised to answer your questions about the results, what they mean for France and how they will affect the wider European project.

Tony Barber, the FT’s European comment editor and writer of the Europe Express Weekend newsletter, joins Andy Bounds, EU correspondent, and Anne-Sylvaine Chassany, the FT’s companies editor, to answer your queries live.

To take part, please leave your questions in the online comments on this story. They will respond to readers for an hour.

Shares in Delivery Hero fell 11 per cent on Monday morning after the German online food delivery group on Sunday announced it might face a fine of over €400mn for alleged anti-competitive agreements to share national markets, exchanges of commercially sensitive information and no-poach agreements.

The company said it intended to “significantly increase” an existing provision of €186mn which followed unannounced inspections carried out by the European Commission in July 2022 and November 2023. Delivery Hero added that it intended to “fully co-operate” with the EU’s executive body.

The European Commission did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The family behind Grifols, the €6bn Spanish healthcare group rocked by fraud allegations earlier this year, is exploring a bid to take the company private with Brookfield Capital Partners (UK).

Spain’s market regulator suspended Grifols shares on Monday morning as the company said it had received a request from the Grifols founding family and Brookfield for access to its books “to carry out due diligence in relation to a possible acquisition”.

Shares in Grifols plunged in January when Gotham City Research, a UK-based short seller, accused the medicine manufacturer of artificially manipulating its debt and earnings through transactions with a company related to the Grifols family. Grifols has denied wrongdoing.

The shares remain down 37 per cent from where they stood before the Gotham accusations.

A series of missiles hit central Kyiv on Monday morning, damaging Ukraine’s main children’s cancer hospital. Rockets also hit the southern cities of Dnipro, Kropyvnytskyi and Kryviy Rih. 

Kyiv’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said a children’s medical facility had been hit and Ukraine’s public broadcaster reported that it was the Okhmat children’s cancer hospital. Footage posted online shows damage to the central building of the hospital and blown-out windows.

The head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Andriy Yermak, said that Russia had targeted the children’s hospital. “This shelling was aimed at civilians, they hit the infrastructure, the whole world must see today the consequences of terror, the answer to which can only be force.”

Large plumes of smoke could be seen rising in at least four other places in the city.

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The UK’s new Labour government said “there is space” for improving the relationship with European partners but the party would not seek to rejoin the EU’s customs union.

In his first interview since last week’s general election, Darren Jones, new chief secretary to the Treasury, said his party would not seek to reinstate the customs union, which allows for the free movement of goods within the EU.

“We are not rejoining the institutions of the union . . . we have been clear about that.” Jones told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“However, we do think there is room to improve the relationship in a pragmatic way.”

French stocks led a decline in European equities on Monday as markets digested the surprise victory of the leftwing alliance in parliamentary elections, while falling short of an overall majority.

France’s Cac 40 index of blue-chip stocks was down 0.4 per cent in early morning trading, while Europe’s wider Stoxx 600 index nudged 0.1 per cent lower.

“We read the election outcome as overall positive, but with a period of uncertainty in the short term,” said Mohit Kumar, chief European economist at Jefferies. “The period of uncertainty could last for a few days to a few weeks, with potential alliances and attempts to form the government.”

Marston’s will dispose of a 40 per cent stake in its brewery joint venture with Carlsberg for £206mn, as the UK pub company works on cutting its debt.

Marston’s, which will sell the stake to Carlsberg, the Danish brewer, will focus on the pub business while retaining a long-term brand distribution agreement with Carlsberg Marston’s Limited, it said.

The joint venture was formed in 2020 to combine the two companies’ brewing businesses. It makes beer for brands including Carlsberg, Marston’s, Brooklyn and Kronenbourg.

French bond markets sold off modestly on Monday after France’s leftwing alliance won legislative elections but fell short of an absolute majority, pushing the gap between benchmark French and German 10-year borrowing costs — seen as a barometer for the risk of holding France’s debt — from 0.68 to 0.71 percentage points.

The euro was down 0.2 per cent against the dollar at $1.0816. Ten-year French bond yields rose 0.04 percentage points.

Carlsberg, the Danish brewer, has reached an agreement to buy Britvic, the UK soft-drink maker, in a £3.3bn deal announced on Monday.

The deal comes a month after the UK soft-drink maker rejected an earlier bid from Carlsberg, saying the Danish brewer was “significantly” undervaluing a group whose brands include Robinsons and Fruit Shoot.

The deal represents a premium of about 36 per cent to the closing Britivic share price of 970p on June 19, the day before speculation around a possible offer started.

Britvic also announced that trading in the third quarter had been strong, with revenue increasing 6.3 per cent.

A drop in Chinese equities on Monday pushed returns on the country’s benchmark index negative for the first time in five months ahead of a key political meeting.

China’s CSI 300 edged down 0.5 per cent, making its return for the year to date negative for the first time since early February. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 1.5 per cent, with a 6.1 per cent fall in Orient Overseas International leading losses.

The drop in markets comes ahead of the Chinese Communist party central committee’s third plenum next week.

Chinese equities performed well in the second quarter after a new head of the country’s securities regulator was appointed, but have struggled recently.

Boeing will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the US government after violating a deal with the Department of Justice, prosecutors said in a court filing on Sunday.

The guilty plea only applies to misconduct preceding the 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019.

The company is subject to a fine of $487.2mn, a justice department official said, adding that the plea agreement did not involve immunity for Boeing employees and executives.

Boeing, which has already paid half the fine imposed, confirmed it had “reached an agreement in principle” with the justice department.

Families of victims killed in the crashes plan to oppose the plea deal for treating the company too generously.

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More than 6,500 workers at Samsung Electronics joined the company’s second strike in a month on Monday, compounding trouble for the South Korean giant as it tries to fight weakness in its advanced memory chip business.

The National Samsung Electronics Union, which has more than 30,000 members — a quarter of the company’s workforce — went on strike after taking collective annual leave in June. It is the union’s first walkout in Samsung’s 55-year history.

The union is demanding that Samsung respect labour activities, improve performance-based bonuses and increase holiday allowances.  

The three-day strike comes as Samsung is struggling to ease concern about its weakening technological competitiveness, especially in high bandwidth memory chips used for training artificial intelligence models. 

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing after holding talks with Vladimir Putin in Moscow. 

“Peace mission 3.0,” Orbán wrote on X as he arrived in the Chinese capital early on Monday morning.  

Orbán, whose country took over the rotating EU presidency last week, is held in high regard in Beijing for his friendly posture towards China. 

Numerous Chinese companies keen for a toehold in Europe have set up in the central European country.

Japan and the Philippines have signed a landmark defence agreement on Monday to deepen military co-operation between the two countries and enhance their regional deterrence against China. 

The sealing of the Reciprocal Access Agreement will allow their militaries to train and conduct exercises in each other’s countries at a time of rising concerns about China’s activity both around Taiwan and in the South China Sea. 

Relations between the two countries have strengthened significantly under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida with Japan agreeing to provide the Philippine navy with coastal surveillance radars.

Japan previously signed a similar security pact with Australia and the UK. 

Asian equities declined on Monday morning, with a sell-off in Chinese shipping companies driving Hong Kong’s stock market to underperform the region.

The Hang Seng index dropped 1.3 per cent, dragged lower by a 6.7 per cent decline in Orient Overseas International, a subsidiary of Cosco Shipping.

Mainland China’s benchmark CSI 300 dropped 0.3 per cent, bringing the index’s performance for 2024 into negative territory for the first time since February. Cosco Shipping led losses with a decline of over 7 per cent.

In currency markets Japan’s yen rose 0.2 per cent against the dollar to ¥160.38 after data showed rising wages but falling real earnings due to persistent inflation.

Real wages for Japanese households fell for a 26th consecutive month as persistent inflation crimped consumer spending power, official data released on Monday showed.

In May, real wages declined 1.4 per cent from the same period last year, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare statistics showed. The last time inflation-adjusted earnings rose in Japan was in March 2022.

But nominal cash earnings for employees on contracts rose 2.5 per cent year on year, the largest jump since December 1994. In March workers at some of Japan’s largest companies secured their biggest pay rise since 1991.

Rising energy prices and a weakening yen have contributed to inflation in Japan, a net energy importer.

Events: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán arrives in Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi travels to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. Philippine and Japanese defence and foreign ministers meet in Manila to discuss deepening their strategic partnership.

Economic data: Japan releases data on real wages, bank lending and its current account.

Corporate updates: Samsung Electronics’ largest labour union is set to begin a three-day strike in South Korea. LG Energy Solution announces quarterly earnings and Nestle India holds its annual meeting.

US President Joe Biden is campaigning in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania on Sunday as he seeks to persuade voters he is fit for office, even as members of his own party debate whether he should be replaced as the Democratic candidate.

Biden will make stops in Philadelphia and Harrisburg, major cities in the state Biden needs to win to retain control of the White House in November.

The appearances are part of a stepped-up effort from the Biden campaign to quell growing alarm among Democrats panicked by the 81-year-old’s shaky debate performance last week.

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France was heading towards a hung parliament and rocky talks to form a government after an unexpected leftwing victory thwarted Marine Le Pen’s efforts to bring the far right to power.

With almost all votes counted on Sunday, the leftist Nouveau Front Populaire bloc had won the most seats in the high-stakes snap election, a severe blow to Le Pen’s Rassemblement National party, which had seen a parliamentary majority within reach.

The outcome represents a resounding success for the co-ordinated anti-RN strategy, under which the left and centre tactically withdrew their candidates from run-off ballots.

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The early stages of a long-awaited recovery in investment banking fees are set to boost Wall Street lenders when they report second-quarter earnings from this week, with mergers and debt deals picking back up after a lacklustre two years.

Analysts expect investment banking revenues at JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup will on average rise more than 30 per cent from a year earlier during the second quarter, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg. 

“You’re beginning to see a nice rebound in investment banking activity,” said Oppenheimer analyst Chris Kotowski. 

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Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that any deal to free the Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza must allow Israel to resume fighting afterwards and achieve all its war goals.

Talks to reach a deal to release the hostages and end the war have been deadlocked for months. However. they are due to resume this week after Hamas made what a senior US official said last week was “a pretty significant adjustment” to its position that had created an “opening”.

However, the Israeli prime minister has reiterated that he would not agree to any deal that did not allow Israel to achieve its war goals. At the beginning of the war, his government said this meant both freeing the hostages and destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities.

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