Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
- Latest: US retail sales surged 5.3% last month
- UK house price inflation hits six-year high
- UK inflation rose 0.7% year-on-year in January
- Furniture prices pushed inflation up amid scramble for sofas
- Ford goes all-electric in Europe by 2030
Inflation jitters are pushing Wall Street down at the start of trading, away from its recent record highs.
Rising bond yields provide less reason to hold stocks and precious metals, with the US dollar gaining traction as a result.
Optimists will recognise that the Fed’s recent average inflation targeting policy allows for significant overshoot on the inflation-front, yet we are yet to see other banks follow suit thus far.
As well as hitting oil production, the winter storms ravaging Texas is also disrupting the semiconductor sector.
One of the area’s largest semiconductor producers, Samsung Electronics, said it had halted operations at its multibillion-dollar fabrication plant in Austin on Tuesday, with no clear timeline for resuming production. Austin’s local energy provider has asked all large-scale manufacturers to reduce or shutter operations during the storm.
The area is home to several tech manufacturing facilities owned by suppliers including Flex, NXP, Applied Materials and Infineon.
Texas winter storm blackouts hit chip production https://t.co/bvWx91sokJ