MOHAMED HUSSAIN YOUNIS/iStock via Getty Images Stocks in Saudi Arabia and Egypt declined Sunday, offering an early indication that escalating hostilities between the US and Iran are spilling into regional financial markets. Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index dropped 2.2%, its steepest one-day fall since April, wiping out its gains for the year. Losses were tempered by a 3.4% rise in state oil ...
MOHAMED HUSSAIN YOUNIS/iStock via Getty Images Stocks in Saudi Arabia and Egypt declined Sunday, offering an early indication that escalating hostilities between the US and Iran are spilling into regional financial markets. Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index dropped 2.2%, its steepest one-day fall since April, wiping out its gains for the year. Losses were tempered by a 3.4% rise in state oil giant Saudi Aramco, which accounts for roughly 16% of the benchmark. Investors pushed the shares higher on expectations that crude prices will climb when global trading resumes in Asia. Egypt’s main stock gauge fell 2.5%, deepening a slide that began in mid-February as fears of a broader conflict intensified. The index is now down more than 8% over that period. Elsewhere in the Gulf, equities in Oman and Bahrain also retreated, while Kuwait suspended trading as a precaution. Israel’s market was closed Sunday following its recent shift to a Monday-through-Friday trading week. Egypt has been particularly exposed to the latest tensions. The Egyptian pound ranked among the world’s weakest currencies last week and slid to about 48.8 per dollar on Sunday, its lowest level since mid-2025. The country’s economy has already been strained by disruptions tied to the Israel-Hamas war, which have diverted shipping away from the Suez Canal, a key source of hard-currency revenue. Fresh pressure emerged after Israel halted natural gas exports to Egypt following joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Tehran responded with attacks across the Gulf and on Israeli targets. Egypt, which had been importing roughly 1 billion cubic feet of Israeli gas per day, is now seeking additional liquefied natural gas cargoes ahead of peak summer demand. The renewed turmoil threatens what had been a tentative recovery in Suez Canal traffic after an October ceasefire in Gaza. French shipping giant CMA CGM said Sunday it had paused transits through the waterway, underscoring the broader economic risks for a region a...
Wall Street’s major market averages finished lower on Friday after the January wholesale inflation report came in hotter than expected. The blue-chip Dow was last lower by 1%, while the benchmark S&P 500 was -0.4%. At the same time, the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite was -0.9%. The S&P 500 Health Care Index Sector ( XLV ) slipped about 0.71% during the week. The top S&P 500 healthcare gainers and l...
Wall Street’s major market averages finished lower on Friday after the January wholesale inflation report came in hotter than expected. The blue-chip Dow was last lower by 1%, while the benchmark S&P 500 was -0.4%. At the same time, the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite was -0.9%. The S&P 500 Health Care Index Sector ( XLV ) slipped about 0.71% during the week. The top S&P 500 healthcare gainers and losers for the last week are as follows: Top 5 Gainers: Edwards Lifesciences ( EW ) +8.41% IQVIA Holdings ( IQV ) +8.08% Moderna ( MRNA ) +7.46% Charles River Laboratories International ( CRL ) +5.67% West Pharmaceutical Services ( WST ) +5.51% Top 5 Losers: Universal Health Services ( UHS ) -10.58% Elevance Health ( ELV ) -6.69% Viatris ( VTRS ) -6.34% Baxter International ( BAX ) -5.61% Becton, Dickinson and Company ( BDX ) -4.81% Here are some of the important healthcare stories from this week: Novo Nordisk stock tumbles as next-gen obesity shot underperforms Lilly’s tirzepatide Novo Nordisk ( NVO ) shares fell over 16% on Monday after the company’s next-generation obesity drug CagriSema delivered less weight loss than Eli Lilly’s ( LLY ) competing treatment in a phase 3 trial, raising new concerns about its sales potential. The REDEFINE 4 trial included 809 randomized people with obesity and one or more comorbidities and with a mean baseline body weight of 114.2 kg. It investigated CagriSema (a fixed-dose combination of cagrilintide 2.4 mg and semaglutide 2.4 mg) compared to tirzepatide 15 mg, both administered once weekly and subcutaneously. Patients taking a standard dose of CagriSema lost 20.2% of their body weight after 84 weeks, compared with 23.6% for Lilly’s tirzepatide. “The trial did not achieve its primary endpoint of demonstrating non-inferiority on weight loss for CagriSema compared to tirzepatide after 84 weeks,” Novo said . Lilly ( LLY ) shares rose nearly 4% in U.S. trading following the results. Viatris beats on Q4; eyes 10% staff reduction Beating Street...
Oil futures will begin trading later on Sunday. Saudi Aramco shares were climbing as trading resumed in Saudi Arabia, possibly hinting that crude is headed for a surge.
Oil futures will begin trading later on Sunday. Saudi Aramco shares were climbing as trading resumed in Saudi Arabia, possibly hinting that crude is headed for a surge.
There was no ATM at the airport and banks were closed. If I missed this flight, all my subsequent flights would have been cancelled Read more in the kindness of strangers series I was 19 and travelling by myself for the first time. It was 1994 and departure tax wasn’t always part of a plane ticket, so it sometimes had to be paid before flying out of a country. And if you didn’t have it, you didn’t...
There was no ATM at the airport and banks were closed. If I missed this flight, all my subsequent flights would have been cancelled Read more in the kindness of strangers series I was 19 and travelling by myself for the first time. It was 1994 and departure tax wasn’t always part of a plane ticket, so it sometimes had to be paid before flying out of a country. And if you didn’t have it, you didn’t leave – something I was about to learn the hard way. I was on a five-week trip around South America that I’d spent years saving for, visiting the pen pals I’d written to as a teenager. At the airport in San José, Costa Rica, I was waiting in line for customs when I realised the border guard was asking those ahead of me to pay US$5 in departure tax – money I didn’t have. It doesn’t seem like a lot now but it was back then. I’d flown in from New York’s JFK airport two days previously and the only ATM had been out of order, so I hadn’t been able to get cash out there, and I’d spent my remaining few dollars on an overnight stay in the city. Continue reading...
The success of any relationship hinges on the same pillars of trust, respect, honesty and shared values. Polyamory simply tests their integrity daily The modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their work Emilio* and Jessica* sat in front of me, disconnected and barely looking at each other. They had been together for seven years and had recently opene...
The success of any relationship hinges on the same pillars of trust, respect, honesty and shared values. Polyamory simply tests their integrity daily The modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their work Emilio* and Jessica* sat in front of me, disconnected and barely looking at each other. They had been together for seven years and had recently opened up their relationship and tried polyamory, upon Emilio’s suggestion. Jessica agreed to this, but it was not her first choice for how she wanted the relationship to be. They were now in a crisis, as betrayals and secrets had occurred before and during the attempts at this new relationship configuration. In my practice as a psychologist, a helpful question I often ask my clients is: “Is the configuration of this relationship working for you?” Continue reading...
Dylan Lopez Contreras, a senior at Ellis Prep academy, was taken by ICE in May. The Guardian invited him and five of his classmates to share their lives and dreams The students at Ellis Prep academy – like most high schoolers – have a lot on their mind right now. Essay deadlines, college applications, younger siblings and dance rehearsals. But also, the immigration operations across the US and the...
Dylan Lopez Contreras, a senior at Ellis Prep academy, was taken by ICE in May. The Guardian invited him and five of his classmates to share their lives and dreams The students at Ellis Prep academy – like most high schoolers – have a lot on their mind right now. Essay deadlines, college applications, younger siblings and dance rehearsals. But also, the immigration operations across the US and the president’s goal of “mass deportations”. Continue reading...
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions asks whether we could cope with a world where computer gave up saying no … This week’s question: what if Shakespeare were dropped in modern-day London? After years of computer saying no, and giving us all migraines and premature grey hair, I’m starting to worry that computer – or rather AI large language models like ChatGPT a...
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions asks whether we could cope with a world where computer gave up saying no … This week’s question: what if Shakespeare were dropped in modern-day London? After years of computer saying no, and giving us all migraines and premature grey hair, I’m starting to worry that computer – or rather AI large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini – are taking too much of a fancy to playing nice and saying yes. I confess to using both of these programs, but I’ve noticed that, well, it’s as if they’re trying to please, with statements such as, “You’re absolutely right, Jeff,” and “That’s pretty much right.” Often, when I ask, “Would you mind thinking for a bit longer on that?”, I then get another response saying: “Jeff, you’re absolutely right, again, to query that result. It turns out I was a bit hasty in my reply …” If the world runs even more on information filleted out from the sump of the internet by LLMs, what are the consequences? Can we look forward to a future in which AI is more concerned with appearing sympathetic (getting good reviews?) than being factual? Er, a bit too human? Jeff Collett, Edinburgh Continue reading...
In the 90s, we internalised an ideal of cool that appeared nonchalant and effortless. Now, young people are unafraid to say they want something and are going to work hard to get it Oh no, striving is cool now. “Never stop grinding and listen … Stop doing anything else but working,” as Pharrell Williams told the Grammys audience last month . The Times recently announced that “ trying really hard an...
In the 90s, we internalised an ideal of cool that appeared nonchalant and effortless. Now, young people are unafraid to say they want something and are going to work hard to get it Oh no, striving is cool now. “Never stop grinding and listen … Stop doing anything else but working,” as Pharrell Williams told the Grammys audience last month . The Times recently announced that “ trying really hard and talking about it ” was in, typified by Timothée Chalamet’s continued commitment to the “ pursuit of greatness ”, which he announced last year, along with being “ so fucking locked in ” to cinema. We’re all supposed to be paying for our big dreams in sweat again , it seems. What’s wrong with that? Nothing, really – but an open admission that you’re ambitious, you want something specific and hard to attain from your life, and intend to work single-mindedly for it doesn’t come naturally to me and my gen X brethren (apart from Williams, apparently, aged 52). We internalised an idea of cool that involved the appearance of, if not actual, effortlessness that’s hard to shake. Continue reading...
The actor and comedian on using humour as his cheat code, his internal monologue and the teacher to whom he owes everything Born in Essex in 1979, Rufus Hound is a comedian, actor and broadcaster. He left his job in PR in 2000 to work full-time as a comedian, first in standup and then on TV. A panel show regular, including Mock the Week and Celebrity Juice, he has also built a substantial stage ca...
The actor and comedian on using humour as his cheat code, his internal monologue and the teacher to whom he owes everything Born in Essex in 1979, Rufus Hound is a comedian, actor and broadcaster. He left his job in PR in 2000 to work full-time as a comedian, first in standup and then on TV. A panel show regular, including Mock the Week and Celebrity Juice, he has also built a substantial stage career, with roles in West End productions such as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Wind in the Willows and One Man, Two Guvnors. He stars in The Mesmerist at Watford Palace theatre from 2-21 March. I was six, and on holiday. My dad was an accountant who benefited, briefly, from the jobs boom of the 1970s. Suddenly, getting on a plane was an option for our family. We spent our summers in Corsica, going on boat trips. A few years ago, I would have said that boy was wide-eyed and innocent. Now I’ve done a bit of therapy, I know he was consumed by anxiety and desperate for attention. Continue reading...
Experts say trusted adults must be brave and discuss issue or risk children looking for answers from unsafe sources Teachers and parents in the UK need to be brave and discuss Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes with children and young people or risk them looking for answers from dubious or dangerous sources, according to experts who will host the first public seminar for schools on the issue. Thrive, the ed...
Experts say trusted adults must be brave and discuss issue or risk children looking for answers from unsafe sources Teachers and parents in the UK need to be brave and discuss Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes with children and young people or risk them looking for answers from dubious or dangerous sources, according to experts who will host the first public seminar for schools on the issue. Thrive, the education consultancy hosting the online seminar on the convicted child sex offender, said: “Many children and young people are encountering this material often without context, warnings or adult support, leaving educators to manage the emotional and safeguarding impact in real time.” Continue reading...
For over a year, Europe has become the world’s geopolitical punching bag, taking economic roundhouses from the east and geopolitical uppercuts from the west without ever swinging back. From US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and covetous glances at Greenland to Beijing’s rare earth embargoes and lightning blockade of semiconductor shipments, Europe’s first response has been to freeze, not fight. ...
For over a year, Europe has become the world’s geopolitical punching bag, taking economic roundhouses from the east and geopolitical uppercuts from the west without ever swinging back. From US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and covetous glances at Greenland to Beijing’s rare earth embargoes and lightning blockade of semiconductor shipments, Europe’s first response has been to freeze, not fight. But now, it may be ready to counterpunch. After a fresh Trump tariff threat emerged last week, a...
Aire Images | Moment | Getty Images As the business world comes to grips with artificial intelligence , the biggest risk may be one where those running the economy can't possibly stay ahead. As AI systems become more complex , humans aren't able to fully understand, predict, or control them. That inability to understand at a fundamental level where AI models are going in the coming years makes it ...
Aire Images | Moment | Getty Images As the business world comes to grips with artificial intelligence , the biggest risk may be one where those running the economy can't possibly stay ahead. As AI systems become more complex , humans aren't able to fully understand, predict, or control them. That inability to understand at a fundamental level where AI models are going in the coming years makes it harder for organizations deploying AI to anticipate risks and apply guardrails. "We're fundamentally aiming at a moving target," said Alfredo Hickman, chief information security officer at Obsidian Security. A recent experience Hickman had spending time with the founder of a company building core AI models left him shocked, he says, "when they told me that they don't understand where this tech is going to be in the next year, two years, three years. ... The technology developers themselves don't understand and don't know where this technology is going to be." As organizations connect AI systems to real-world business operations to approve transactions , to write code , to interact with customers , and move data between platforms, they are encountering a growing gap between how they expect these systems to behave and how they actually perform once deployed. They are quickly discovering that AI isn't dangerous because it's autonomous but because it increases system complexity beyond human comprehension. "Autonomous systems don't always fail loudly. It's often silent failure at scale," said Noe Ramos, vice president of AI operations at Agiloft, a company that offers software for contracts management. When mistakes happen, she says, the damage can spread quickly, sometimes long before companies realize something is wrong. "It could escalate slightly to aggressively, which is an operational drain, or it could update records with small inaccuracies," Ramos said. "Those errors seem minor, but at scale over weeks or months, they compound into that operational drag, that compliance ...
monticelllo/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Five months since my initial analysis , Diageo plc ( DEO ) decreased by $16, or 16%, which justifies my hold rating before. This should not be surprising if we consider various factors affecting the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Today, DEO remains fundamentally resilient despite the impact of softer market conditions. However, its upside potentia...
monticelllo/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Five months since my initial analysis , Diageo plc ( DEO ) decreased by $16, or 16%, which justifies my hold rating before. This should not be surprising if we consider various factors affecting the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Today, DEO remains fundamentally resilient despite the impact of softer market conditions. However, its upside potential remains limited as valuation justifies the continued price downtrend. Technicals adhere to it as momentum remains weak despite rebound attempts and new buying opportunities. DEO H1 2026: Headwinds Are Intense, But It’s Still Sober To Survive The global beer/wine/spirit market still grapples with recovery amid stubborn inflation and new tariffs. The increasing cost pressures continue to affect their pricing strategies. The changing attitude of the younger generation towards alcoholic beverages continues to hamper recovery and growth in many players. Even a big business with established brands like Diageo plc is having a hard time dealing with the current market environment. Yet, its strategic management allows it to weather these headwinds. This was visible in its most recent performance. In H1 2026, its net sales amounted to $10.46B , down by 4.0% YoY from $10.90B. Lower consumption and production was the primary cause, as volume dropped across five regions in the world. This was most evident in North America and Europe. In fact, volume decreased to 121.7M ethanol units, or EUM versus 122.8 . Even if we divide net sales by volume, we will arrive at the same observation. The average sales per EuM were only $85.95 versus $88.76. With that, both demand and pricing power decreased. Higher excise duties also drove it, which should not be surprising amid higher tariffs in the world. Regional Results (DEO H1 2026 Report ) On a lighter note, DEO still strengthened in Africa with its positive organic growth in volume and net sales. In fact, the average sales per Eum increased from...
jozzeppe/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Introduction International Business Machines ( IBM ) has found itself caught up in the topic of the day in markets. Sentiment is a funny thing, and it has a habit of taking rather wild swings, which can lead to pretty dramatic moves in the equity market. In recent weeks, we saw the release of a new tool by Anthropic known as Claude Cowork . This new AI-na...
jozzeppe/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Introduction International Business Machines ( IBM ) has found itself caught up in the topic of the day in markets. Sentiment is a funny thing, and it has a habit of taking rather wild swings, which can lead to pretty dramatic moves in the equity market. In recent weeks, we saw the release of a new tool by Anthropic known as Claude Cowork . This new AI-native tool positioned itself not as mere software but as a fundamental game-changer for the industry, the advent of digital workers that would completely disrupt the traditional software industry . The implication being that the nature of the labor force itself was set to change, with software being a key casualty. The market seems to have thrown the baby out with the bathwater and sold anything and everything with software exposure, with little consideration for the very real differences between software vendors. The first thing I want to make abundantly clear is that the selloff of software is in some sense rational; it's just not properly calibrated. I do believe that software vendors that offer a discretionary, non-mission-critical solution, lacking deep client integration and with no data moat, are likely to be fundamentally disrupted. As I will show later on, we already see the telltale signs of dispersion between the truly at risk and those that got sold off as part of a knee-jerk reaction. IBM is not a company that will be replaced by AI, for a few reasons, I believe. IBM is as mission critical as it gets for firms; its software runs the very pipes on which many companies operate. IBM is a trusted long-term partner to some of the world's biggest enterprises. Just as one example of many, the global banking system, guess where that runs? It's all on IBM mainframes . Why is that? It is because it needs 24/7/365 zero-fault reliability; that's what IBM brings to the table, and that's why they absolutely do not belong in the same basket as a discretionary SaaS company offe...
SW Photography/DigitalVision via Getty Images Real Estate Weekly Outlook U.S. equity markets slumped this week - while benchmark interest rates dipped to multi-year lows - as investors weighed unresolved questions around artificial intelligence and a renewed flight to safety sparked by escalating Middle East tensions while looking past a hotter-than-expected inflation print. A curious "risk-off" b...
SW Photography/DigitalVision via Getty Images Real Estate Weekly Outlook U.S. equity markets slumped this week - while benchmark interest rates dipped to multi-year lows - as investors weighed unresolved questions around artificial intelligence and a renewed flight to safety sparked by escalating Middle East tensions while looking past a hotter-than-expected inflation print. A curious "risk-off" bid for Treasuries escalated throughout the week despite relatively firm economic data and stubbornly hot inflation data - a defensive posture that took sharper relevance over the weekend after a dramatic U.S.-led strike of Iranian leadership that sought to topple the Islamic regime, the second precision strike against a U.S. adversary in as many months. Hoya Capital Following its best weekly gains since early January, the S&P 500 slipped 0.6% on the week. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 declined 0.4% but outperformed for a second straight week after a prolonged stretch of underperformance through January and into February, as selling pressure in AI bellwethers began to stabilize on the heels of decent results from chip giant Nvidia. Smaller-cap and "value-oriented" segments of the market generally lagged, with the Mid-Cap 400 down 1.1% and the Small-Cap 600 slumping 1.7%, weighed down by pressure on regional banks and industrials. Posting a second-straight month of outperformance, real estate equities led on the upside again this week, buoyed by a combination of surprisingly strong REIT earnings results and by the sharp retreat in interest rates. Led by double-digit gains from a handful of specialty REITs, the Equity REIT Index advanced 0.9% on the week, with 17 of 20 property sectors in positive territory. The Mortgage REIT Index was roughly flat, while the Housing Index slipped 2%, despite a dip in 30-year mortgage rates to below 6% for the first time since 2022. Hoya Capital In bond markets, Treasury yields retreated sharply across the curve as a sustained bid for duration and...
Artificial intelligence might lead to a revolution in the U.S. economy and dramatically reshape the jobs market. That’s precisely why so many people are worried about it.
Artificial intelligence might lead to a revolution in the U.S. economy and dramatically reshape the jobs market. That’s precisely why so many people are worried about it.
After US and Israeli attacks on Iran, Colonel Wayne Sanders looks at the next potential military steps in the country. Sanders, a senior defense research analyst for Bloomberg Intellilgence, speaks with David Gura and Christina Ruffini on 'Bloomberg This Weekend. (Source: Bloomberg)
After US and Israeli attacks on Iran, Colonel Wayne Sanders looks at the next potential military steps in the country. Sanders, a senior defense research analyst for Bloomberg Intellilgence, speaks with David Gura and Christina Ruffini on 'Bloomberg This Weekend. (Source: Bloomberg)
Getty Images/Getty Images News As U.S. and Israeli airstrikes hit Iran over the weekend, traders on prediction platform Polymarket were collecting payouts. And drawing scrutiny. Roughly $529 million changed hands in markets tied to the timing of a potential U.S. strike, Bloomberg News reported late Saturday. Analytics firm Bubblemaps said six newly created accounts made about $1 million combined b...
Getty Images/Getty Images News As U.S. and Israeli airstrikes hit Iran over the weekend, traders on prediction platform Polymarket were collecting payouts. And drawing scrutiny. Roughly $529 million changed hands in markets tied to the timing of a potential U.S. strike, Bloomberg News reported late Saturday. Analytics firm Bubblemaps said six newly created accounts made about $1 million combined by betting the U.S. would attack Iran by Feb. 28. The accounts, opened in February, focused solely on strike-related wagers, with some shares reportedly purchased for as little as 10 cents just hours before explosions were reported in Tehran. Blockchain analysts say such patterns of new wallets, concentrated bets and well-timed trades can resemble insider activity. But they caution that the evidence is circumstantial. U.S. officials had signaled possible military action for weeks, fueling heavy speculation. A Feb. 28 strike contract alone drew about $90 million in trading volume, far more than other dates. Not every bettor profited. One of the flagged accounts had previously lost money wagering on an earlier strike before placing a larger bet that ultimately paid off. The episode underscores the murky oversight surrounding prediction markets, where traders can participate with little more than a crypto wallet. Polymarket, which operates offshore and bars U.S. users, didn’t respond to requests for comment by Bloomberg News. The company has said its markets aggregate public information and help gauge risk during fast-moving events. Other Iran-related contracts have also sparked debate, including one tied to whether Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would be out of power by the end of March. Critics note that the market’s terms do not exclude death as a qualifying outcome, raising ethical concerns. Regulated rival Kalshi, overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said it doesn’t offer contracts that settle on death and has taken enforcement actions against users suspected...
Mark Esper, former US Secretary of Defense under President Donald Trump, says US attacks could render Iran defenseless. He speaks with David Gura and Christina Ruffini on 'Bloomberg This Weekend' (Source: Bloomberg)
Mark Esper, former US Secretary of Defense under President Donald Trump, says US attacks could render Iran defenseless. He speaks with David Gura and Christina Ruffini on 'Bloomberg This Weekend' (Source: Bloomberg)