Financial news

• Google parent Alphabet sees double-digit growth as AI bets boost cloud business

  29-10-2024 22:52 via theguardian.com
  
  Analysts expected 12% year-on-year revenue gains, but company reports 15%, buoyed by performance in ads and cloud servicesAlphabet, parent of Google and YouTube, saw a third straight quarter of better-than-anticipated gains as it reported earnings on Tuesday. The tech giant had largely exceeded analyst expectations for the previous two quarters, and Tuesday’s results showed growth in both digital advertising and demand for Google Cloud. Shares rose in after-hours training.“The moment
  
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• ‘Fits a cot perfectly’: tiny space for rent in Silicon Valley exposes dire rental market

  29-10-2024 21:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Craigslist ad offers 3ft by 10ft space for just $250 a month – for ‘nerdy gamer’ but nobody with a criminal recordA California “home” for rent is shining a light on the US housing crisis – and evoking Harry Potter’s living situation.For $250 a month, an online ad is offering the opportunity to reside in a 3ft by 10ft cubby located under the stairs of a one-bedroom apartment in downtown San Jose. Continue reading...
  
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• Santander to cut more than 1,400 jobs in UK amid increasing automation

  29-10-2024 20:51 via theguardian.com
  
  News of redundancies comes as UK division delays publication of results after car finance court rulingSantander is cutting more than 1,400 jobs across its UK business this year as part of its efforts to reduce costs.The Spanish bank’s chief executive officer, Hector Grisi, confirmed the cuts as its UK division delayed publication of its latest financial results to consider the impact of an influential court ruling linked to commission on car finance. Continue reading...
  
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• Washington Post cancellations hit 250,000 – 10% of subscribers

  29-10-2024 20:08 via theguardian.com
  
  Reader backlash against decision not to make presidential endorsement rolls on despite Bezos defense of decisionDeterioration of the Washington Post’s subscriber base continued on Tuesday, hours after its proprietor, Jeff Bezos, defended the decision to forgo formally endorsing a presidential candidate as part of an effort to restore trust in the media.The publication has now shed 250,000 subscribers, or 10% of the 2.5 million customers it had before the decision was made public on Friday,
  
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• Investors need clarity on BP policy not boss’s weak promises

  29-10-2024 18:48 via theguardian.com
  
  Shareholders still do not know if giant will jettison goal to cut oil and gas production by 25% by 2030There goes another of BP’s shiny targets-cum-ambitions. This one is not related to the pace of energy transition but is purely financial. Soon after getting the top job permanently at the start of the year, the chief executive, Murray Auchincloss, said BP planned to spend $14bn (£10.7bn) buying back shares over the course of 2024 and 2025. Now he’s not so sure about the second
  
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• ‘The rich need to pay more’: Britons’ hopes and fears for the budget

  29-10-2024 16:21 via theguardian.com
  
  While some want Rachel Reeves to raise taxes for the wealthy, others fear the long-term sick could be penalisedUK politics live – latest updatesSeven Britons share their hopes and fears about the chancellor Rachel Reeves’s first budget, and weigh up the needs of pensioners, those unable to work and small businesses, with tax incentives for professionals and the government’s budgeting needs. Continue reading...
  
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• Number of UK mortgage approvals at highest level since 2022 mini-budget

  29-10-2024 14:52 via theguardian.com
  Bank of England figures show fourth monthly increase in a row as September approvals rise by 700 to 65,600Business live – latest updatesDemand for new home loans has risen to its highest level in more than two years as falling interest rates attract buyers back into the property market.Figures from the Bank of England showed mortgage approvals for new purchases rose by 700 to 65,600 in September – the fourth monthly increase in a row. Continue reading...
  
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• My niece was fired from her job as a chugger – but no one could make this model work | Zoe Williams

  29-10-2024 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Charities that exist to serve young people are instead exploiting them with insecure minimum-wage work and unrealistic targetsThe modern practice of chugging – a contraction of “charity” and “mugging”, where cheerful young people come up to you in the street and ask you if you’ve ever really thought about what life would be like without clean water – is mostly discussed for its nuisance to the chuggee.I never even considered the other side of the equatio
  
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• Rot, romance and renovations: the reality of buying a cheap old house on Instagram

  29-10-2024 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  From Germany to Japan, people are buying up draughty churches, leaky hotels and asbestos-filled schools for peanuts and turning them into dream homes. They can be as big as 40,000 sq ft – but are they always a great deal?There’s an Italian farmhouse on the Cheap Houses EU Instagram account that I have my eye on. It has red shutters, stone brickwork and a chicken coop out the back, and while the 1970s interiors are straight out of a horror film, for €65,000 – the price of a
  
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• Loophole exempts 355 landowners in England from inheritance tax, data shows

  29-10-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Chancellor urged to cancel tax break that uses scheme to register land as heritage asset and worth at least £68mThree hundred and fifty-five wealthy landowners in England including aristocrats are benefiting from an obscure tax break worth at least £68m, data shows.The landowners benefit from a loophole called the “tax-exempt heritage assets scheme”, under which they can register land and property as heritage assets and make them exempt from inheritance tax. Continue read
  
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• HSBC’s ‘better world’ seems to exclude our charity

  29-10-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  When we asked the bank to transfer our aid fund assets to a new account it refusedIn 2021 you helped the charity, of which I’m treasurer, when its bank account of 25 years was suddenly closed by HSBC. If it hadn’t been for your intervention, Akamba Aid Fund, which helps deprived communities in Kenya, faced closure, too. Since then, we had an application to a development fund refused because we were a charitable trust and not a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO). I discovered
  
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