Sunday newspaper round-up: Debt deal, Rolls-Royce, supermarkets
The legislation needed to implement the debt deal agreed between president Joe Biden and House speaker Kevin McCarthy is being urgently worked on so that it can be put to a vote in Congress. Lawmakers were expected to be given the details of the agreement on Sunday with McCarthy aiming for it to be brought to the floor of the House on Wednesday. Biden was nevertheless confident that the deal would pass in Congress. - Guardian
Aerospace and Defence
11,637.35
16:29 27/12/24
Banks
4,888.64
16:29 27/12/24
FTSE 100
8,149.78
16:54 27/12/24
FTSE 350
4,495.62
16:29 27/12/24
FTSE All-Share
4,453.14
17:05 27/12/24
Lloyds Banking Group
54.36p
17:00 27/12/24
Rolls-Royce Holdings
578.00p
17:00 27/12/24
Thousands of jobs are set to go at Rolls-Royce as the engineer launches a dramatic turnaround plan aimed at cutting costs. Consultants at McKinsey will advise on how to streamline the business. One consultancy source said that the merger of departments could reduce the company's 30,000 non-manufacturing positions by a tenth. Rolls-Royce however says that no decision has been taken. The company has also identified £1.5bn of non profitable contracts which it aims to renegotiate and is also planning to reduce its working capital. - The Sunday Times
Ministers are analysing together with supermarkets how to voluntarily cap the prices of basic food items in order to alleviate the cost of living squeeze. Among the essentials that will likely be included are bread and milk. The agreement appeared to be similar to that recently reached in France between food retailers and the government to set the "lowest possible price" for everyday products during an initial period of three months. - Guardian
The Bank of England will step in if the recent chaos in the bond market continues. For former Trade Minister Liam Fox, the chaos is Bank's fault for taking their eye off the ball on inflation. Experts caution that further interest rate hikes could break the pensions sector and add to the pain of the 1.3m homeowners who are set to remortgage in 2023. Hiking Bank Rate to 5.5% could send more shockwaves through financial markets, some say. - Financial Mail on Sunday
Lloyds Bank slammed Facebook-owner Meta for what it said was its failure to stop a 'Wild West' surge in digital shopping scams known as 'purchase' frauds. For years now, lenders and insurance companies have fumed at the fact that social media outfits are not held responsible for their fair share of compensation to the victims of fraud through their platforms. - The Financial Mail on Sunday