MORE than $1 trillion was wiped off world markets on China’s “Black Monday”, with the FTSE 100 off almost 5%. On Tuesday, the blue-chip index gained 3% and the pound and the dollar staged rebounds after China cut its lending rate by half a point — though the Dow Jones industrial average continued to fall. By Wednesday, however, the benchmark American index had risen almost 4% following hints that interest rates could remain at rock-bottom levels for longer. And on Thursday, the Dow was pushed even higher by a big revision to second-quarter GDP growth in America from 2.3% to 3.7%. By the end of the week, the UK and US markets were settled.
Two bookies, Paddy Power and Betfair, announced plans to get into bed together in a £6bn “merger of equals” that sent their share prices soaring.
FTSE 100 insurer RSA is expected to accept a £5.6bn offer from its Swiss rival Zurich, meaning chief executive Stephen Hester will be back in the job market.
Shares in HSS plummeted by nearly 40% after the ailing equipment hire company issued its second profit warning since floating in February.
Tata Steel decided to mothball its Llanwern plant in Newport, South Wales.
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Feed-in tariffs, the government subsidies paid to households that generate electricity from solar panels, will be cut by almost 90%, from 12.9p per kilowatt hour to 1.63p, in January.
The former boss of Tesco, Philip Clarke, is to be questioned by the Serious Fraud Office over the supermarket chain’s £326m accounting scandal.
Bonuses have returned to pre-financial crisis levels, totalling £42.4bn in 2014-15 — although payments amounting to £13.6bn in financial services were down 9.6% on the year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Sainsbury’s is to increase wages this weekend by 4% to a new hourly rate of £7.36 an hour for 85% of the supermarket’s 161,000 staff.
Net trade boosted GDP by one percentage point in the second quarter, as exports leapt by almost 4%, the ONS reported.
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An IT failure at HSBC delayed 275,000 payments, including salaries, just before the bank holiday weekend.
Facebook claimed 1bn users on a single day for the first time in its 11-year history.
Mitie chief executive Ruby McGregor-Smith, underwear queen Michelle Mone and banker James Lupton, chairman of Greenhill Europe, were awarded peerages by David Cameron.