Dollar falls while gold and US Treasury bonds rally as markets react to Democrats’ midterm election victory – business live
Posted on Wednesday November 04, 2026

Democrats’ capture of Congress raise expectations of tougher regulation of AI sector; US stock futures turn positive, reversing earlier declines

And Chris Turner, global head of markets at ING, says:

Investors will be parsing what this all means. For example, Gina Hinojosa won the Texas governor’s race on a ticket of wanting an immediate moratorium on data centre buildouts.

Given AI’s role in powering the US economy, speculation over whether a new Democrat Congress would slow AI capital expenditure plans briefly hit markets. The chip exporter-heavy stock markets of Korea and Taiwan were briefly down 3-4% overnight on news of the blue wave, but have since recouped all those losses.

For bond investors, the significance of the midterms is ultimately about what they mean for US borrowing. The result makes further significant fiscal expansion harder to deliver through Congress, potentially easing some of the pressure around government borrowing and Treasury issuance.

That could be supportive for US Treasuries, but it won’t determine the direction of yields on its own. Growth, inflation and the Federal Reserve remain crucial. If the economy slows and inflation continues to ease, there is a stronger case for Treasury yields to move lower.

Bonds are coming out ​as the clear winner as markets put the AI trade on the ​chopping block and embrace the higher possibility that further tax ​cuts are put on ice and government spending slows.

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M&S boss bemoans last week’s budget as ‘whole lot of nothing’
Posted on Wednesday November 04, 2026

Stuart Machin hits out at Labour but welcomes expected UK-EU food deal as retailer reveals half-year results

The chief executive of Marks & Spencer has called John Healey’s first budget as chancellor a “whole lot of nothing” and bemoaned an “onslaught of taxation and regulation” from the Labour government, despite welcoming an expected deal on EU border checks.

Stuart Machin said he was disappointed at last week’s budget statement, adding that it “didn’t really address the issues we need to focus on growth”. He said the chancellor’s “real terms” freeze on business rates, for example, would lead to an additional £10m on M&S’s existing £170m rates bill.

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BMW warns on profits as it counts cost of plan for 8,000 job cuts
Posted on Wednesday November 04, 2026

German carmaker slashes profit margin to between -0.5% and 0.5% this year in face of competition from China

The German carmaker BMW has issued its second profit warning in a year, blaming the costs of a restructuring programme including significant job losses in the face of continuing competition from China.

The company is the latest to issue a profit downgrade in the German car sector, with Mercedes-Benz last week cutting its profit outlook. Western automakers have struggled to keep pace with lower-cost domestic rivals in China, which has led to reduced sales there and a rise in exports to Europe.

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Britain’s housing market unlikely to recover until 2028, says Savills
Posted on Wednesday November 04, 2026

House prices forecast to fall by 1.5% next year as Middle East war keeps mortgage rates higher for longer

Britain’s sluggish housing market is not expected to recover until 2028 as higher mortgage rates linked to the war in the Middle East deter buyers and weigh on prices.

The property firm Savills said average house prices were expected to drift lower during the rest of 2026 and fall by 1.5% in 2027, as the prolonged conflict undermines buyers’ confidence and keeps mortgage rates higher for longer.

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Hackers behind $6.3bn Binance heist ‘used malware and bogus job interviews’
Posted on Tuesday November 03, 2026

Firm reveals details about how its cryptocurrency exchange was compromised, saying operation began in June

The hackers behind the $6.3bn (£4.7bn) Binance heist used bogus job interviews, malicious software and an internal AI tool, the company has revealed.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange was compromised in an operation that began with an inadvertent download of malware in June, led to a recruitment scam in September and then a raid last week of “hot wallets” where billions of dollars worth of crypto-assets were taken.

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AI ‘godfather’ Geoffrey Hinton: it might turn out we were better off without AI
Posted on Tuesday November 03, 2026

Nobel winner warns the tech could be near to triggering major incident such as power or banking shutdown

One of the “godfathers of AI”, Geoffrey Hinton, has said it could turn out that humans would have been better off never developing the technology as he warned it could trigger a large-scale incident this year or next, such as a temporary blackout of financial or power systems.

The Nobel prize-winning computer scientist told the Guardian he is not a “doomer” about the technology that is underpinned by his groundbreaking research into artificial neural networks and believes AI has the potential to lead to a “wonderful future” but he said “it might be that we would have been better off never developing it”.

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The Spin | ‘I wanted the ball to be hit at me’: life in cricket’s most dangerous fielding position
Posted on Wednesday November 04, 2026

James Taylor recalls the ‘moments of pure elation’ and twisted intimacy of being under the batter’s nose at short leg

Out in Arizona, just south of Tucson. Where tumbleweeds tumble in search of a home. There’s a town they call Tombstone where the brave never cry …

On the outskirts of Tombstone stands Boothill Graveyard, the final resting place for the many cowboys who died “with their boots on” in the seconds-long but deadly shootouts of the wild west.

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Manchester United’s wild win against Roma showed angry fans we care, says Dalot
Posted on Wednesday November 04, 2026

• Full-back believes 3-2 win can transform season

• United were booed off by supporters at half-time

Diogo Dalot believes Manchester United’s comeback win against Roma in the Champions League on Tuesday can transform their troubled season and, as importantly, showed unhappy supporters that the players care.

The Glazer family, who have owned United since 2005 and loaded £1.2bn of debt onto the club, continue to be the focus for fan anger and there was yet another protest against them before kick-off at Old Trafford, with thousands of green and gold balloons released from the Stretford End. The home crowd sang anti-Glazer songs and threw tennis balls on to the pitch when the clock showed 20 minutes and five seconds, to symbolise the year 2005. The team have seven points from their opening nine games of the Premier League season; their worst start since 1987-88.

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