more than 3/10 of a percent. this is what they call a bull run. the market s been on the upswing since october 2022, and it s thanks to a few tailwinds. among them, an outperforming tech sector and a resilient labour market. the federal reserve has a role too. so far it s been able to cool inflation without tipping the economy into a recession. that s called a soft landing and it s buoying wall street. stocks are rallying in anticipation of interest rate cuts that the fed has signalled this year, which would let interest rates fall from a 22 year high. when interest rates go down, it makes it cheaper for businesses and individuals to borrow money. so spending increases and usually that makes stock prices go up. meanwhile, it s a different story for the chinese stock markets, which have been struggling in the new year. chinese premier li qiang pledged to take forceful and effective action to support market confidence. shares in mainland china and in hong kong have been hoverin
editor faisal islam. this is clearly a mess but the expectation in financial circles is that shareholders will provide the funds to keep thames water going. but the question is how did this come about in an industry that should be so simple, providing a product that everybody needs, and provided the monopolies of several million customers with no competition. and the answer is in hugely complicated structures, huge debts, and lots of regulation. the boss of thames water, sarah bentley, abruptly stood down on tuesday. she was battling to turn around the company after a legacy of under investment. let s discuss what s at stake with dr kate bayliss from the centre for water and development at soas university in london. thank you for being on the programme. faisal islam there talking and touching on some of theissues talking and touching on some of the issues why thames water is where it is. can you elaborate on that, please? on that, please? yes, well, thames on that, please?
what is your view? is it the end of humanity or a bit more of a benign force? well, it could be somewhere in between, i would say. i mean, ithink, like a lot of people, so i ve toyed around with like the chat bots and things, and things like that, chatgpt. we d actually, we d wrapped on this latest series of black mirror and then, and then the next month chatg pt came out. one of our episodes is quite timely. there s a sort of ai generated imagery thing going on in one of our episodes. but i toyed around with chatgpt and you sort of type in like, come up with a black mirror storyline, or something like that or, say something in the style of philomena cunk, or something like that, and it will do, it will spit out something that at first glance you get a kind of sudden spike of dread and think, that s it, i m out of a job, this thing has replaced me, because it looks convincing. but that s really. where we re at at the moment, that s really what it s doing, it s just sort
they were looking to salvage a terrible financial performance that it has been seen, but also for sony, which is also really facing stiff competition right now in the indian market from the likes of amazon, netflix as well as a potential merger between disney and reliance industries. these two giants were looking to come together and consolidate their presence against this competition, but of course it has now fallen through because there was no consensus it has been said between the two companies and who would lead the merged entity. zee of course wanted its current loss to be leading it. sorry of course had reservations about that because of a number of corporate governance cases that have been pending against him. so despite nearly two years of negotiations and a 30 day grace period, the deal has now fallen through. it doesn t look like this is the end because sony is now seeking a $90 million termination fee and zee has said it will go to the courts as well. we will have
make their last minute pitches across the state. this is the second in a series of state by state contests with donald trump and nikki haley fighting for their party s presidential nomination. that prize will pit them against the democratic choice in november, almost certainly presidentjoe biden. but with a cost of living crisis hitting many americans what are these two candidates saying about economic policy? dr thomas gift is director of the centre on us politics at university college london good to see you again. when it comes to policy it is hard to find what these two are saying at the moment? it find what these two are saying at the moment? at the moment? it is terrific to talk to at the moment? it is terrific to talk to you at the moment? it is terrific to talk to you as at the moment? it is terrific to talk to you as always. - at the moment? it is terrific i to talk to you as always. there is not a whole lot of discussion in terms of policy about the us economy