Thursday 28 June 2018

There is peace in our time after Apple and
Samsung finally settled a seven-year-long patent dispute. The terms
of the deal, which resolves the long-running battle over the design
of their rival smartphones, were not disclosed. Just weeks ago, a
US court ordered Samsung to pay Apple $539m (£403m) in damages for
copying features of the original iPhone.

The governor of the Bank of England has
defended his advisers’ expenses claims, which were described as
“staggering” by MPs. Carney also admitted that his own bill
exceeded £300,000 over the past two years. The Canadian said the
Bank was “steward of public funds” and therefore the Treasury
select committee was right to question figures in the accounts of
its financial policy committee.

Ticketmaster customers have been warned they
could be at risk of fraud or identity theft due to a major data
breach that has affected tens of thousands of people. The Guardian
says that a number of the ticketing giant’s customers have already
had fraudulent transactions debited from their accounts. The
company is facing questions over whether there was a delay in
disclosing the breach.

Sir Charlie Mayfield, the boss of John Lewis
and Waitrose, says that profits this year will be “substantially
lower than last year”. Revealing his strategy for the coming 10
years, Sir Charlie said that due to market uncertainty, he was
expecting first-half profits of “close to zero”. Over the next five
years, the group plans to rebrand its businesses as “John Lewis
& partners” and “Waitrose & partners”. 

The Competition and Markets Authority says
hotel booking sites must review the way they rank and display
rooms. The watchdog claims some sites may be making misleading
claims over discounts, and said some sites may be “rushing”
customers into booking decisions by giving misleading impressions
of availability. Although the CMA did not name which companies it
is investigating, the BBC points out that leading sites include
Expedia and Booking.com.

“The Chancellor has got some really horrible choices in the
spending review. Something’s got to give. Whether it’s more
cuts, more tax or more borrowing.” Paul Johnson of the
Institute for Fiscal Studies says the UK faces 20 years of tax
rises.

FTSE 100: up +1.11 to 7,621.69
Dow Jones: down -0.68 to 24,117.59
Dax: up +0.93 to 12,348.61
Cac 40: up +0.87 to 5,327.20
Nikkei: down -0.00 to 22,271.66
Hang Seng: up +0.04 to 28,366.70
US dollar: buys €0.8651 and £0.7631
Sterling: buys $1.3101 and €1.1334
Oil: $77.50 down -0.12