8 The world this week Business
The rout in government-bond A rise in the cost of oil pushed
markets deepened, as
investors bet that interest rates
would stay higher for longer.
The yield on America’s ten-
year Treasury bond neared
4.9%, the highest since 2007.
In Europe the yield on Ger­
many’s benchmark ten-year
debt rose above 3% for the first
time since 2011. With markets
speculating that the Bank of
Japan will soon raise rates,
Japanese bond yields were at
their highest point in a decade,
pushing the central bank to
make unscheduled purchases
of government debt in order to
maintain its policy of control­
ling yields. The finance min­
istry refused to say whether it
had intervened in currency
markets, after the yen reached
150 to the dollar.
The sell-off spread to stock-
markets, causing the Dow
Jones Industrial Average to
turn negative for the year. The
s&p 500 fell by 5% in Septem­
ber and the nasdaq Composite
by 6%, the worst month for
both indices so far in 2023.
Losing faith in the homeland
The Russian rouble slid below
the symbolic mark of 100 to the
dollar. A Kremlin spokesman
said there was "no cause for
concern”. Officials have been
putting pressure on the central
bank to lift interest rates to
halt the decline. The bank
made an emergency increase
in August and raised its main
rate again last month, to 13%.
One reason for the rouble’s
depreciation is businesspeople
pulling their money from
Russia, which has sparked a
debate about reintroducing the
type of currency controls that
were brought in at the start of
Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The euro zone’s annual
inflation rate fell sharply in
September, to 4.3%, the lowest
level in almost two years. The
core rate, which excludes food
and energy, dropped to 4.5%.
The mood music from the
European Central Bank is that
it will keep its interest rates at
the current high levels so that
inflation drops to 2% by 2025.
holding. The Danish govern­
Turkey’s inflation rate to 61.5%
in September. The central bank
has raised interest rates to 30%
to try to tame prices.
Sam Bankman-Fried went on
trial in a court in Manhattan
over the collapse of ftx, the
world's third-biggest crypto­
currency exchange before its
bankruptcy. Mr Bankman-
Fried is accused of defrauding
investors and customers in the
company he founded and of
money-laundering. He has
pleaded not guilty. The trial of
the former high-roller, who
was once courted by politi­
cians because of his generous
funding for projects related to
"effective altruism”, is expect­
ed to last six weeks.
Birkenstock priced its forth­
coming IPO on the New York
Stock Exchange at a range of
between $44 and $49 a share.
The German sandal-maker is
seeking a top valuation of
$iobn, which would make it
one of the biggest stockmarket
flotations this year.
Air France-KLM will take a
stake of 19.9% in sas, as the
bankrupt Scandinavian airline
restructures its business. An
American private-equity firm,
Castlelake, will become the
biggest shareholder with a 32%
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ment will hold roughly 26%.
The reorganisation means sas
will no longer list on the stock-
market, wiping out existing
shareholders.
Electric-vehicle sales
Worldwide, '000
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2021 22
Source: Bloomberg
Tesla delivered just over
435,000 cars in the third quar­
ter. That was below market
expectations, even accounting
for the effects of upgrades to
the carmaker’s factories. With
Tesla’s production down by
10% over the previous quarter,
byd is nipping at its heels as
the world’s biggest seller of
electric vehicles. The Chinese
company, which is making a
big drive into foreign markets,
sold 431,600 fully electric cars
in the quarter.
Riding the wave of a boom in
tourism, Carnival Cruises
reported a record $6.9bn in
quarterly revenues and a solid
profit. The company’s booking
volumes are nearly 20% above
WE ARE SLOWiy
BUT SURELY
ERODING THE
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The Economist October 7th 2023
their levels in 2019. Carnival
and Royal Caribbean Cruises
have been among the
best-performing stocks on the
s&p 500 this year, exceeded
only by the likes of Meta,
Nvidia and Tesla.
A shoplifters' paradise
500
British retailers demanded
that the government take
urgent action to stop the rise of
retail crime. British shops
recorded 867 incidents a day in
the 12 months ending March
23
2022, double the pre-pandem-
*Excl. hybrid vehicles
ic rate. Retail theft cost £953m
($i.ibn) in the most recent
survey, despite retailers
spending £700111 on crime
prevention. Retailers want the
police to do more; 44% think
the police response has
been poor.
Florence became the latest
tourist destination to curtail
Airbnb and similar platforms
when it banned new short­
term rentals in the city centre.
The number of local properties
listed on Airbnb has mush­
roomed from 6,000 in 2016 to
almost 14,400 today, even as
average ordinary monthly
residential rents have jumped
by 42%. Florentines are com­
plaining that their apartment
blocks are turning into hotels,
says the mayor.
REPUBLICAN
PART/