Nvidia shares open higher after $500bn sell-off; Microsoft hit with EU antitrust charge over Teams – business live

US consumer morale has dropped this month, a new survey shows, but was stronger than expected.

The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index dipped in June to 100.4, down from 101.3 in May. Economists had expected it would fall more, to exactly 100.

The decline was due to a deteriorating short-term outlook for income, business, and conditions in the jobs market.

Dana M. Peterson, chief economist at The Conference Board, explains:

“Confidence pulled back in June but remained within the same narrow range that’s held throughout the past two years, as strength in current labor market views continued to outweigh concerns about the future.

However, if material weaknesses in the labor market appear, Confidence could weaken as the year progresses.”

Ding Ding goes the Wall Street opening bell….. and Nvidia shares have opened higher.

Nvidia has jumped 2.8% in early trading, to $121.46, up from $118 last night, after losing over $500bn in a dramatic tumble over the last three sesssions.

As flagged this morning, technical analysts had indicated that Nvidia’s shares could have support at $115.

They hit an alltime high of $140 last week, when Nvidia surged to become the world’s most valuable company, before starting to lose ground on Thursday.

A summer of savings: Barclays and HSBC to cut fixed-rate mortgage deals

Rupert Jones

HSBC and Barclays are cutting rates on their fixed mortgage deals in what some brokers claim could be the start of a “summer of savings” for homebuyers and those looking to remortgage.

Barclays has reduced rates by more than 0.25 percentage points in some cases from Tuesday, and its cuts led to a quick response from HSBC, which said it would be cutting rates across its home loans range with effect from Wednesday.

While new home loan rates have been broadly stable over the last month or two, the pricing of some deals has crept up. However, recent improvements to money market swap rates – which largely determine the pricing of new fixed deals – appear to have prompted two of the biggest mortgage lenders to reduce their rates, with others predicted to follow suit.

More here:

Human rights organisation Amnesty International has hit out at plans for China’s fast fashion group Shein to float on the London Stock Exchange.

It emerged yesterday that Shein has confidentially filed for a public listing in London, which could value the company at around £50bn.

This would be London’s biggest ever float.

But Dominique Muller, Amnesty International researcher specialising in the garment industry, says the City should demand transparent and binding safeguards regarding human rights standards, before admitting Shein to the fold:

​“It’s deeply troubling that a company with questionable labour and human rights standards and an unsustainable fast fashion business model could be set to reap hundreds of millions of pounds via a sale of shares and a listing on the London Stock Exchange.

“Where SHEIN goes, others will try to follow. The UK authorities and the London Stock Exchange should not facilitate SHEIN’s listing until transparent and binding safeguards regarding internationally accepted human rights standards covering its entire supply chain are agreed and applied, and any abuses identified fully remedied.

“Rewarding SHEIN’s current methods via a flotation would be a badge of shame for the London Stock Exchange, the bankers helping bring it to market, and any investors set to profit from it. It would be an appalling example of a process which delivers for the rich by squeezing the poor. It validates the view that it is acceptable to regard workers and their rights, company products and the environment as expendable – which cheapens us all.

“It is essential the new UK government does not allow a race to the bottom in terms of corporate and human rights standards. It should require companies to prevent serious environmental harms and human rights abuses occurring throughout their entire operations and supply chains. It should enable workers whose rights are abused by company activities anywhere in the world recourse to justice through UK courts.”

Shein has been accused of using forced labour to make its affordable clothing, such as t-shirts and sweaters.

The Mail on Sunday reported last weekend that Shein may scrap its London float plans, amid growing disquiet in Beijing over the way the fast-fashion retailer is portrayed in the UK.

A US central bank policymaker has indicated she would be open to raising interest rates if inflation not fall as hoped.

In a speech in London today, Federal Reserve governor Michelle Bowman also said the time is not right yet to start lowering borrowing costs.

Bowman explained:

Should the incoming data indicate that inflation is moving sustainably toward our 2% goal, it will eventually become appropriate to gradually lower the federal funds rate to prevent monetary policy from becoming overly restrictive.

However, we are still not yet at the point where it is appropriate to lower the policy rate. In my view, we should consider a range of possible scenarios that could unfold when considering how the FOMC’s monetary policy decisions may evolve.

I remain willing to raise the target range for the federal funds rate at a future meeting should progress on inflation stall or even reverse.

Last month, US consumer price inflation fell to an annual rate of 3.3%, down from 3.4% in April.

Vauxhall owner says car plants could shut unless ‘stupid’ UK rules change

Lisa O’Carroll

The owner of the Vauxhall, Peugeot and Citroën brands has warned its car plants in Ellesmere Port and Luton could close unless market demand for electric vehicles and “stupid” regulatory conditions change.

The UK managing director of Stellantis said the company did not want to shut operations in the UK but it would make a decision in “less than a year” in the face of unreasonable government sales quotas and lack of consumer incentives in relation to VAT on vehicles and electricity.

Maria Grazia Davino said today:

“You have to make strategies that are based on efficiency. I want to keep the production [in the] UK and I want to be clear on this.”

She added that the demand for electric vehicles was “soft” and unless there were further incentives for businesses to buy the electric commercial vehicles or more support from the government it may have no choice.

Tesla is recalling more than 11,000 Cybertruck electric vehicles, due to problems with the windscreen wiper motor and the trunk bed trim seal,

Marketwatch reports:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration acknowledged Tesla’s TSLA notification of both matters in letters dated Monday. The wiper issue potentially impacts 11,688 2024 Cybertruck units, while the trunk-bed trim issue could affect 11,383 units of the 2024 model.

The recalls are the latest setback for the vehicle whose mass production is expected to start next year, points out Reuters:

Big tech news from Brussels: Microsoft has been accused of anti-competitive behaviour by the European Commission for bundling its Teams app with its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 software suites.

The EC says it is concerned that, since at least April 2019, Microsoft has been tying Teams with its core software-as-a-service (SaaS) productivity applications.

This, it fears, has restricted competition on the market for communication and collaboration products and defending its market position in productivity software and its suites-centric model from competing suppliers of individual software.

The Commission explains:

In particular, the Commission is concerned that Microsoft may have granted Teams a distribution advantage by not giving customers the choice whether or not to acquire access to Teams when they subscribe to their SaaS productivity applications. This advantage may have been further exacerbated by interoperability limitations between Teams‘ competitors and Microsoft’s offerings. The conduct may have prevented Teams’ rivals from competing, and in turn innovating, to the detriment of customers in the European Economic Area.

If confirmed, these practices would infringe Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’), which prohibits the abuse of a dominant market position.

Today’s Statement of Objections comes almost a year after the EC launched an antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s bundling of its Teams video and chat app with some of its other products.

The Commission says that after it began its investigation, Microsoft introduced changes in the way it distributes Teams, and started offering some suites without Teams.

However, the Commission has preliminarily found that these changes are insufficient to address its concerns and that “more changes to Microsoft’s conduct are necessary to restore competition”.