News updates from May 30: Trump found guilty in ‘hush money’ case; Biden gives Ukraine limited approval to use US weapons on Russian targets

New York City mayor Eric Adams has said the police force “stands ready” to respond to large-scale protests following the conviction of former president Donald Trump in a “hush money” trial.

“While peaceful protests and assembly will always be protected, we will not be a city of any form of lawlessness,” Adams said in a statement.

Earlier this month the New York Police Department stormed Columbia University to break up pro-Palestine protests. Adams, a former NYPD captain, defended the decision.

On Thursday a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on all counts of falsifying business records to cover up a “hush money” payment to a former porn actress. He will be sentenced on July 11.

The website that processes donations to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign crashed after the Manhattan jury in his “hush money” trial delivered the guilty verdict.

Trump’s campaign site redirected visitors to WinRed, the Republican party’s official fundraising platform, but the page to donate to the former president was down.

“If you are one of the millions of American Patriots wanting to donate to Donald Trump’s campaign and you get an error message from
@WINRED . . . don’t give up! Log back on and try again !” Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita wrote in a post on X. “Help us send weak
@JoeBiden packing !!!”

Venture capitalist Shaun Maguire, a Sequoia partner, said he donated $300,000 to Trump’s bid, writing on X, “The timing isn’t a coincidence.” 

Former New York representative Lee Zeldin also claimed on X that he “secured” a $800,000 donation for Trump’s joint fundraising committee. “Never experienced a massive ask that easy,” the Republican wrote.

Donald Trump’s campaign announced it will hold a press conference in New York on Friday morning.

After being found guilty on Thursday by a Manhattan jury in the “hush money” trial, the campaign said in a post on Truth Social that the press conference would take place in the Trump Tower atrium at 11am.

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg acknowledged Donald Trump was “a defendant unlike any other in American history” but said his office had handled the case the way it would any other.

“I did my job. Our job is to follow the facts without fear or favour. And that’s what we did here,” he said after the verdict on Thursday.

He declined to say whether he would seek a prison sentence for the former president.

“This type of white-collar prosecution is core to what we do at the Manhattan district attorney’s office,” Bragg said.

Donald Trump’s former national security adviser has warned Republicans against nominating a convicted felon for president, as some in the party withheld their support in the aftermath of the guilty verdict.

In a post on X, John Bolton said Thursday’s verdict was a “fire-bell in the night” and urged the Republican Party to not “not nominate a convicted felon for president”.

Larry Hogan, the Republican former governor of Maryland who is running for the Senate, urged Americans to respect the verdict and the legal process.

An image in this post has been amended because it was miscaptioned by the photo agency that provided it.

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman echoed comments from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who called Donald Trump’s guilty verdict part of a “political agenda”.

Earlier on Thursday, the Financial Times reported Ackman was leaning towards backing Trump in the presidential election.

DeSantis, who ran against Trump in the Republican primary, said in a post on X that the “verdict represents the culmination of a legal process that has been bent to the political will of the actors involved: a leftist prosecutor, a partisan judge and a jury reflective of one of the most liberal enclaves in America”.

In a reply, Ackman said: “I think any objective person would have to agree with [DeSantis] here.”

Donald Trump insisted he was “a very innocent man” and the victim of a “rigged” trial in his first comments after the guilty verdict was handed down.

Speaking outside the courtroom, the former president argued that the jury pool was pulled from a New York region where he is deeply unpopular, and accused the prosecution of being politically motivated — allegations he has made throughout the trial.

Although the case was brought by a New York state prosecutor in Manhattan, Trump argued it was orchestrated by President Joe Biden in order to damage him politically ahead of the presidential election.

“This was done by the Biden administration in order to wound or hurt an opponent, a political opponent. I think it’s just a disgrace. We’ll keep fighting, we’ll fight to the end and we’ll win.”

He also used the two minutes of remarks to hit on campaign themes, including his claim that the US is being overwhelmed by “millions and millions” of undocumented migrants: “Our country’s gone to hell. We don’t have the same country any more, we have a divided mess.”

US President Joe Biden’s campaign has broken its silence on Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial and said the only way to keep the newly convicted felon out of the White House was to vote.

As the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Trump will still be on the ballot on election day, despite his new status as a convicted felon.

“There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box,” Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said on Thursday.

“Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president,” Tyler said.

Until this week, the Biden campaign had stayed silent on the trial.

The White House, meanwhile, had little to say about the verdicts: “We respect the rule of law, and have no additional comment,” said Ian Sams, spokesperson for the White House counsel’s office.

A number of Republican lawmakers raced to issue statements in support of Donald Trump and slamming the jury’s decision.

Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson called it a “shameful day in American history”.

“This was a purely political exercise, not a legal one,” Johnson added, saying the decision was “further evidence that Democrats will stop at nothing to silence dissent and crush their political opponents”.

“The American people rightfully see this is lawfare, and they know it is—and dangerous. President Trump will rightfully appeal this absurd verdict—and he WILL WIN.”

Several of Trump’s most vocal allies on Capitol Hill, including House judiciary chair Jim Jordan and House Republican conference chair Elise Stefanik, issued similar statements accusing Democrats of weaponising the justice system and arguing Trump would nevertheless prevail at the ballot box in November.

Republicans are starting to react to the Donald Trump verdict. Florida Senator Marco Rubio posted on X that the verdict was “a complete travesty that makes a mockery of our system of justice”.

Former Republican primary challenger Vivek Ramaswamy predicted: “This will backfire.”

Mike Pompeo, who served as Trump’s secretary of state, posted on X: “The future of this country should — and will — be decided by the American people in an election, not by 12 New Yorkers in a travesty of a politicized courtroom.”

The Trump and Biden campaigns moved within minutes of the guilty verdict to raise money.

Trump wrote on his campaign website, “I’M A POLITICAL PRISONER!”

“I was just convicted in a RIGGED political Witch Hunt trial,” he added. “I DID NOTHING WRONG!”

And through his campaign’s X account, Biden asked for donations, telling his supporters that “There’s only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: At the ballot box.”

Shares in Trump Media and Technology Group fell after the verdict against Donald Trump

The stock dipped as much as 15 per cent to $44 in after-market trading.

They recovered slightly to $47.44, down 9 per cent from their official market close at $51.84.

After the verdict was read, Donald Trump addressed observers outside of the courthouse and said he was “innocent”.

“This was a rigged decision right from day one, from a conflicted judge,” he said, adding that the “real verdict” will come on November 5, election day in the US.

Donald Trump’s sentencing is set for July 11 after being found guilty on all 34 counts in the “hush money” trial.

The criminal trial, which Trump was forced to attend in person, was the first against any former US president. The 34 counts on which he was convicted carry a maximum prison sentence of four years each, but as a first-time offender, he is unlikely to be incarcerated.

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The Nasdaq Composite notched its biggest drop in a month, as an afternoon sell-off took hold.

The tech-heavy index closed 1.1 per cent lower on Thursday, its worst one-day fall since the end of April. The benchmark S&P 500 fell 0.6 per cent, while in contrast to its bigger cousins, the small-cap focused Russell 2000 added 1 per cent.

Investors are now turning their attention to inflation figures on Friday morning, when the personal consumption expenditures price index data are released. Economists forecast the headline index, which the Federal Reserve uses to set its 2 per cent inflation target, to remain steady at an annual pace of 2.8 per cent in April.

US Treasuries recovered ground after a sell-off on Wednesday. The yield on the 10-year note fell 0.08 percentage points to 4.55 per cent. The yield on the two-year note dropped by 0.06 percentage points to 4.93 per cent.

President Joe Biden has approved the use of US-made weapons by Ukraine to strike within Russia as long as the targets relate to the offensive in the Kharkiv region, a US official said on Thursday. 

The decision marks a shift compared to Washington’s previous position that Ukraine should not strike targets within Russia using US weapons — and follows growing pressure from Kyiv and its allies for Biden to make the change. 

But the move falls short of a sweeping greenlight from Ukraine to use US weapons to strike everywhere inside Russia. 

“The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use US-supplied weapons for counter-fire purposes in the Kharkiv region so Ukraine can hit back against Russian forces that are attacking them or preparing to attack them,” a US official said.

“Our policy with respect to prohibiting the use of ATACMS or long-range strikes inside of Russia has not changed.”

The jury in Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial said it has reached a verdict, which is set to bring to an end several weeks of testimony against the former president.

The jury still requires time to fill out forms, meaning the verdict could be announced soon after 5pm New York time. The criminal trial, which Trump was forced to attend in person, was the first against any former US president. He faces 34 separate counts.

Despite weeks-long round-the-clock coverage of the Manhattan trial, Trump is riding high in the polls, and is consistently leading Joe Biden in key swing states.

Trump has also been successful in delaying the three other criminal cases he faces, over alleged attempts to frustrate the results of the 2020 presidential election and the retention of classified documents after his departure from office. None are likely to go to trial before the election in November.

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman is leaning towards backing Donald Trump in the US election, according to a person briefed on his thinking, as some of Wall Street’s leading figures throw their weight behind the former president.

Ackman, who backed Trump’s Republican rivals, including Nikki Haley, in the party’s primary contest this year, is expected to make his endorsement on X, the Elon Musk-controlled social media platform in which he is a minority investor.

Ackman has previously donated money to Democrats, including Dean Phillips, who mounted a primary challenge to President Joe Biden this year.

The person familiar with Ackman’s thinking said the billionaire did not believe alternative candidates such as Robert F Kennedy Jr, whose long-shot White House bid he had also supported, were likely to win.

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Shares in US retailers endured bout of volatility as investors rewarded optimistic outlooks on discretionary spending and punished companies struggling more with an under-pressure American consumer.

Rosy outlooks from Best Buy, Foot Locker and Burlington Stores were those that cheered investors.

Best Buy’s chief executive said the company expects demand for electronics to improve, and that consumer eagerness for new products with AI features should support growth in its computing category.

Foot Locker has contended with flagging sales, but it expects trends to improve. It forecast flat to positive comparable sales growth in the second quarter, and also noted a moderation in markdowns during its first three months of the year. 

Off-price retailer Burlington Stores lifted its full-year profit outlook after a forecast-beating quarter.

Elsewhere, Kohl’s shares were set for a record drop on a surprise loss and tough outlook, while Dollar General fell as customers cut back spending on discretionary items.

The head of the US Federal Aviation Administration said on Thursday the agency will be tracking Boeing’s progress on certain newly established safety and quality metrics for “months”.

FAA administrator Mike Whitaker said he had met with Boeing chief executive Dave Calhoun on Thursday morning to discuss the details of a plan the manufacturer had submitted on how it intends to improve the quality and safety of its production process. The regulator gave Boeing 90 days to develop the plan after a door panel blew out in January during a commercial flight.

“This is about systemic change, and there is a lot of work to be done,” he said.

US stocks fell on Thursday as traders assessed a weaker picture of first-quarter domestic growth and prepared for inflation data due on Friday.

The S&P 500 fell 0.4 per cent in New York. A heavy decline in tech stocks outweighed gains made in every other sector of the index. The Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.6 per cent as five Magnificent Seven groups traded lower.

US Treasuries recovered after a steep sell-off on Wednesday. The yield on the 10-year note fell 0.07 percentage points to 4.55 per cent. The yield on the two-year note dropped by the same amount to 4.92 per cent.

A third human case of H5N1 bird flu connected with the current US outbreak has been detected in a Michigan dairy worker who is the first infected individual to experience respiratory symptoms, US health authorities said on Thursday.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the bird flu case, which is just the fourth ever reported in the US, was “the first human case of H5 in the United States to report more typical symptoms of acute respiratory illness associated with influenza virus infection”.

The CDC continues to classify the public health risk from the outbreak affecting poultry farms and cattle herds as “low”, saying the latest case was “another instance of probable cow-to-person spread”.

Kohl’s shares were on course for a record plunge after the US department store chain posted a surprise loss in its latest quarter, cut its sales outlook for the year and warned of continued economic pressure for its customers.

Shares were down 23 per cent at a six-month low in afternoon trading on Thursday, putting them on course for their biggest one-day drop since the company listed in 1992.

“Our consumers continue to be pressured by a number of economic factors, including high interest rates and inflation, while spending among our high- income customers has remained steady. Our middle-income customer continues to be impacted in this environment,” chief executive Tom Kingsbury said during a call with analysts.

Despite the ongoing challenges Kohl’s faces as it navigates flagging demand for discretionary items, it said it still believed in its strategic initiatives that it expected to turn the company around.

Traders shrugged off a mid-morning blip that caused live data for indices including S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average to disappear from investors’ screens for about an hour.

Prices returned around midday, and the S&P 500 recovered some ground to be 0.2 per cent lower in lunchtime trading on Thursday. The benchmark index had almost 0.5 per lower before the live data stopped.

In a statement, S&P Dow Jones Indices said it was aware of an issue affecting its real-time index values between 10.41am and 11.51am EST. It said the system was since running normally and that it was continuing to investigate the root cause of the outage.

Futures based on the indices traded throughout. CME, which offers those contracts, declined to comment.

“It’s over,” said one New York-based equity derivatives trader. “Market makers who do a lot of active trading and pricing of various products in the S&P 500 complex often do their own calculations . . . Trading [in the various products] wasn’t disrupted — people had a good sense of where the market was without looking at dissemination of the S&P 500.”

Billionaire Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities has hired former Goldman Sachs executive Jim Esposito as president of the high-frequency market-making firm, underscoring the ambitions of upstart trading businesses to rival traditional Wall Street banks. 

Esposito, known to colleagues as “Espo”, was one of Goldman’s most senior bankers until his sudden departure in January. 

“I am excited to join Citadel Securities, a next generation capital markets firm with world-class talent and cutting-edge analytics and technology,” Esposito said.

The Edinburgh International Book Festival is ending a 20-year partnership with its lead sponsor Baillie Gifford, following the withdrawal of several authors and threats of disruption from activists that prompted the festival’s chair to warn that “funding for the arts is now in a perilous position”.

Jenny Niven, chief executive of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, said in a statement on Thursday that the pressure on the team and their colleagues at Baillie Gifford “has simply become intolerable”. This had compromised their ability to deliver an event in August that was safe and successful for audiences, authors and staff.

The announcement follows a similar move last week by Hay Festival, which suspended its sponsorship from £225bn asset manager Baillie Gifford after boycotts from speakers and performers over the Edinburgh-based fund manager’s purported links to Israel and the fossil fuel industry.

Saudi Arabia is due to decide later on Thursday whether to proceed with a sale of at least $10bn of its shares in national oil company Saudi Aramco, as the kingdom seeks further capital for its sovereign wealth fund.

Advisers to Saudi Aramco have been in Saudi Arabia making the last preparations for a secondary share offering for several days and the final decision is expected to be made by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to people familiar the matter.

A final decision on the size of the offering will also be made later on Thursday, one of the people said, adding that the target could be much higher.

Read more here

WeWork has received court approval to exit bankruptcy, capping a tumultuous few years for the co-working giant that saw it go from a $47bn valuation to court protection. 

Judge John Sherwood of the New Jersey district bankruptcy court approved the plan on Thursday, which involves slashing $4bn in debt and handing the reins to the company’s secured lenders. Yardi Systems, a real estate software company, will be the majority owner, while SoftBank and King Street will have minority stakes.

The co-working giant largely used the court process to pare down its burdensome lease portfolio, and is projected to cut its total rent liability by $12bn.  

A forward-looking indicator of US home sales unexpectedly fell more than expected in April, a sign that the housing activity has slowed amid high mortgage rates.

The pending home sales index — covering signed contracts for homes where transactions have not yet closed — plunged 7.7 per cent in April to a reading of 72.3, the National Association of Realtors said on Thursday. That missed economist expectations for a 0.6 per cent decline after a 3.6 per cent increase in March.  

NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said that home-buying activity weakened in April despite an uptick in inventory. Still, he said activity should improve in the second half of the year. 

“The Federal Reserve’s anticipated rate cut later this year should lead to better conditions, with improved affordability and more supply,” Yun added.

Klarna’s credit losses jumped in the first quarter as the Swedish buy now, pay later pioneer expanded overseas.

Consumer credit losses at the fintech rose by 59 per cent to SKr1.2bn ($110mn) in the first quarter. A person familiar with Klarna said the credit losses were driven mainly by its push into the US, where it is still calibrating its underwriting model.

However, net losses at the company more than halved year on year in the period to SKr323mn. Klarna said its use of AI had helped drive an 11 per cent reduction in operating expenses as 90 per cent of its workforce was regularly using the new technology. Revenues, meanwhile, rose 29 per cent to SKr6.4bn.

The US is close to signing a new bilateral security pact with Ukraine in a signal of support aiming to assuage Kyiv after “tense” relations that some Ukrainian officials say have hit their lowest ebb since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The agreement would be the most significant in a series of deals Ukraine has struck with Nato countries that lays out commitments on long-term support, including military training, intelligence sharing and economic assistance.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s frustration with Joe Biden was laid bare this week, when the Ukrainian president rebuked his US counterpart in unusually blunt terms, saying Biden’s plan to attend a Democratic fundraiser rather than Ukraine’s peace summit on June 15-16 was “not a strong decision”.

One Zelenskyy-appointed senior government official who spoke to the Financial Times about the US-Ukraine relationship said: “We are farther apart than ever since the war started. It is very, very tense.”

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US stocks slipped early on Thursday, extending a slide from the previous session as traders weighed lower than expected economic growth against better than expected inflation data.

Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 lost 0.2 per cent, as did the tech-dominated Nasdaq Composite. The indices both fell 0.7 per cent on Wednesday as rising Treasury yields weighed on global equity markets.

On Thursday, however, yields on interest rate-sensitive two-year Treasuries fell 0.04 percentage points to 4.94 per cent. Yields on benchmark 10-year Treasuries fell 0.05 percentage points to 4.57 per cent. Yields move inversely to prices. 

A measure of the dollar’s strength against a basket of six other major currencies fell 0.3 per cent.

The US economy grew less than expected over the first quarter of 2024, but a crucial measure of inflation was slightly better than first feared.

The second estimate of GDP growth showed the US economy expanded by 1.3 per cent over the three months to March, against an original figure of 1.6 per cent. The economy expanded by 3.4 per cent in the fourth quarter.

However, the personal consumption expenditures inflation figure used to calculate GDP was also revised slightly — to an annualised rate of 3.3 per cent, from 3.4 per cent. The core PCE index, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was also revised by 0.1 percentage point to 3.6 per cent, alleviating fears that strong demand will weigh on the Federal Reserve’s attempts to return inflation back to their goal. 

The Fed targets headline PCE of 2 per cent a year. 

The GDP report revised consumer spending growth down to 2 per cent from 2.5 per cent in the advance estimate, while private inventory investment and federal government spending were softer than expected.

Additional reporting by Alexandra White in New York

US discount retailer Dollar General beat expectations in the first quarter, as strong footfall boosted sales even though customers spent less per visit as they contended with inflation. 

Dollar General and other discounters have continued to benefit as consumers seek out deals to stretch their dollars.

The company said same-store sales grew 2.4 per cent, beating analyst expectations for an increase of 1.6 per cent. Earnings declined 29.5 per cent from the same period last year to $1.65 a share, beating expectations for $1.56. 

Customers continued to cut back spending on discretionary items such as apparel and home products, but spent more on consumables. 

Shares were up 5.6 per cent in pre-market trading.

Eurozone unemployment dropped further in April, falling by 0.1 percentage points as a strong jobs market took the rate to its lowest level since the formation of the currency bloc in 1999.  

The euro area’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate fell to 6.4 per cent, with just under 11mn people unemployed, according to data from Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency, on Thursday. This was down from 6.5 per cent in March. 

Across the wider EU region the figure was 6 per cent, amounting to 13.1mn people, a reading that remained flat on the previous month. 

US GDP: Economists expect the second estimate for first-quarter economic growth to be revised lower to 1.3 per cent from an advance estimate of 1.6 per cent.

Dollar General: The discount retailer is expected to report a 5.9 per cent increase in revenue in its first quarter, as consumers continue to search for bargains amid persistent inflation. Profit is expected to fall by a third to $1.57 a share as the retailer’s margins continued to be pressured by a spending shift towards necessities and away from discretionary items. 

Other companies: Burlington Stores, Hormel Foods, Best Buy, Birkenstock, Kohl’s Corporation, and Foot Locker will report earnings before the bell. Nordstrom, Costco, Dell, Ulta and Gap will release earnings after the markets close. 

Other economic data: New applications for unemployment aid are forecast to have edged up to 218,000 in the week ended May 25, compared with 215,000 claims in the prior week. Pending home sales in the US are expected to have decreased 0.6 per cent in April after rising 3.4 per cent the prior month.

Fedspeak: New York Fed president John Williams will deliver a speech at the Signature Luncheon hosted by the Economic Club of New York. Dallas Fed president Lorie Logan will make a speech at the Borderplex Alliance event in El Paso, Texas.

The budgets of UK mortgage holders remained the hardest hit by higher prices in March, while those who owned their homes outright were least affected, according to official data that measures household cost inflation for different groups.

Household costs for mortgagors were 5.5 per cent higher than a year earlier, with the annual rate of increase slowing from 12.6 per cent in March of 2023, the Office for National Statistics said on Thursday. Household costs for owner-occupiers, who are less affected by rising borrowing costs, rose by just 3.3 per cent in the year to March. 

Overall, UK household costs rose 4.4 per cent in the year to March, slowing from an annual rate of 5.3 per cent in January. 

Berlin has said it will abolish a controversial levy on gas transiting Germany to its eastern neighbours, after countries including the Czech Republic and Austria had said it would force them to increase imports of Russian gas.

Sven Giegold, the German secretary of state for energy, said on Thursday that the government would abolish the levy on January 1 2025 following pressure from other EU member states. 

“We understood [the levy] causes trouble for the diversification away from Russian gas,” Giegold said. 

A 34 per cent planned increase in the transit tax will go ahead on July 1, however, as Gielgold said it was “quasi automatic” and the legislation could not be changed at this late stage. 

Big share price moves in Europe today include UK car sales platform Auto Trader, Norwegian energy engineering company Subsea7 and Telecom Italia:

• Auto Trader: Shares in the UK-based car resale platform accelerated 11.5 per cent in early trading, making it the biggest gainer on the Europe-wide Stoxx 600 index, after the group reported a 26 per cent rise in operating profit for the year to March to £349mn.
  

  

• Subsea7: Shares in the Norwegian energy engineering company specialising in offshore projects rose 3.8 per cent after it announced it had secured a contract worth more than $1.25bn with Brazil’s Petrobras. 

• Telecom Italia: Shares in the Italy-based telecoms group retreated 5.8 per cent, despite the company registering a marginal first-quarter rise in group revenue to €3.9bn, as home-market sales dipped 1.3 per cent to €2.8bn.

European stocks were steady in early trading on Thursday ahead of eurozone inflation data, due on Friday.  

The region-wide Stoxx Europe 600 rose less than 0.1 per cent, as did France’s Cac 40. Germany’s Dax fell 0.2 per cent and London’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.1 per cent.

Data published on Wednesday showed German inflation rose more than forecast to a four-month high in May, owing to an acceleration in services prices. Eurozone-wide figures are expected to show that consumer prices in the region were 2.5 per cent higher in May than a year ago, a slight acceleration from April.

Early counts in the South African election suggest the governing African National Congress is on course to lose its parliamentary majority.

Most polls closed on Wednesday at 9pm. By about 8am on Thursday, 10 per cent of the voting districts had completed counting.

The ANC was leading in these districts with 42.3 per cent of the votes, with the Democratic Alliance at 26.3 per cent, followed by Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters at 8.1 per cent. The MK Party, founded six months ago by former President Jacob Zuma, was at 7.6 per cent. The ANC’s vote tends to rise, however, as more rural voting districts report results, while that of the DA tends to fall.

Bootmaker Dr Martens has halved its dividend after reporting a drop of almost 43 per cent in pre-tax profits.

The company said on Thursday that the year to March had been a “challenging” one, with a tough trading environment and economic uncertainty. It highlighted problems in the US, its largest market, where it has faced weak consumer confidence and a drop in demand for boots.

Sales fell 12 per cent while pre-tax profits were down 42.9 per cent to £97.2mn. The dividend was cut from 5.84p a share to 2.55p.

Italian luxury goods group Golden Goose has announced its intention to float on the Milan stock exchange, issuing €100mn worth of shares.

The fashion and sportswear company said on Thursday that the aim of the IPO, which it said would take place in June, was to strengthen its capital structure and reduce debt. 

Golden Goose, known for its Superstar range of trainers, also reported revenues of €587mn for the year to December 2023, with an operating margin of 25.4 per cent. The group said it hoped to generate revenues of €1bn by 2029. 

Asian equities and currencies extended their decline on Thursday, following US stocks and bonds lower after a weak Treasury auction on Wednesday prompted a bond sell-off.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index led losses in the region, shedding 1.3 per cent amid an ongoing sell-off in Chinese property companies with listings in the city. The Hang Seng Mainland Properties index fell 2.8 per cent.

In currency markets, the South Korean won weakened the most against the US dollar, falling 0.7 per cent, while the Indonesian rupiah dropped 0.6 per cent as the prospect of higher for longer interest rates in the US increased the appeal of holding dollars.

The chief executive of Credit Suisse is stepping down following the merger of the Swiss bank with rival UBS in March of last year.

Ulrich Körner will step down from the UBS group executive board at the end of June, UBS announced on Thursday morning. He will retire from UBS “later this year”, the statement said.

Körner’s departure was expected as UBS consolidates control over the merged banks and lays off employees to cut costs. The Financial Times reported he was set to leave the bank in early May.

Earlier this month UBS reported its first quarterly profit since taking over Credit Suisse.

EU jobs data: April unemployment figures will be published.

UK parliament dissolves: Westminster parliament ends ahead of the July 4 general election.

Nato: Foreign ministers from the alliance gather in Prague for a two-day informal meeting, where they are expected to discuss the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Corporate earnings: UK car listings platform Auto Trader and bootmaker Dr Martens will release full-year results. German sandal company Birkenstock will publish quarterly earnings.

China’s President Xi Jinping called for deepening co-operation with Arab nations during remarks delivered to the region’s leaders in Beijing on Thursday.

Xi proposed accelerating “the construction of a China-Arab community with a shared future” based on co-operation on areas including trade, investment, energy and innovation, according to official state media. He also reiterated China’s commitment to a two-state solution as part of ending the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

The remarks were delivered to mark the beginning of the China-Arab States Co-operation Forum. Among those attending are heads of state from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Tunisia.

A Hong Kong court has convicted 14 pro-democracy activists in a national security case that has effectively wiped out the city’s political opposition.

The case involved 47 activists, with the prosecution accusing them of attempting to use an informal primary election in 2020 to “paralyse” Hong Kong’s government by winning majority control of the legislature and blocking public spending from approvals. 

Of the accused, 31 previously pleaded guilty and 16 maintained their innocence. Two were acquitted on Thursday while the rest were found guilty of “conspiracy to commit subversion” under a sweeping national security law imposed in 2020. They face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Asian equities and currencies fell on Thursday, following US markets lower after a weak Treasury auction spurred a sell-off in bonds.

Japan’s benchmark Topix stock index led losses, declining 0.8 per cent, while the exporter-heavy Nikkei 225 fell 1.7 per cent.

The US dollar index rose 0.5 per cent against six other currencies as investors assessd the possibility of the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates higher for longer.

Most Asian currencies weakened against the dollar, with the Indonesian rupiah and South Korean won leading losses, falling 0.4 per cent and 0.3 per cent, respectively. The yen was steady in early trading at about ¥157.40.

Events: Chinese President Xi Jinping addresses the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum in Beijing. A Hong Kong court delivers its verdict on a national security trial involving some of the city’s most prominent pro-democracy activists.

Economic data: Australia releases April building approval data, Taiwan announces first-quarter gross domestic product and Japan publishes figures on foreign buying of stocks and bonds.

Companies: Ping An and China Unicom have their annual meetings.

Shares in workplace software company Salesforce sank 15 per cent in after-market trading on Wednesday on sales and earnings guidance that missed forecasts.

Salesforce said it anticipated second-quarter earnings per share of between $1.31 and $1.33, well below a consensus estimate of $1.47 a share. Quarterly revenue is forecast at between $9.2bn and $9.25bn, below analysts’ expectations for $9.37bn.

The company also lowered its estimate for subscription sales growth for the full year to “slightly below” 10 per cent, compared with the 10 per cent it forecast in February. 

Marc Benioff, chief executive, said Salesforce was “at the beginning of a massive opportunity” with the rollout of artificial intelligence tools. 

A global bond sell-off on Wednesday prompted stocks to retreat as lukewarm sales of US Treasuries weakened investor sentiment and investors worried anew about the impact of interest rates remaining higher for longer.

Treasury yields broadly rose to their highest levels in a month following the seven-year auction, building on a sell-off that had started on Tuesday in the wake of weak two- and five-year auctions. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield rose to a peak of 4.64 per cent.

The weak mood helped stocks close near their lows for the session, giving the S&P 500 one of its worst days this month, down 0.7 per cent.

US Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito has refused to step away from cases involving Donald Trump and the 2021 attack on the US Capitol after reports of controversial flags flown at his properties spurred calls for his recusal.

In a letter to US senators who had called for his withdrawal, Alito on Wednesday said the incidents did “not meet the conditions for recusal”. 

The contention stems from media reports showing an upside-down American flag flying at Alito’s home days after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6 2021.

The upside-down flag was a symbol used by Trump supporters who claimed the 2020 presidential election had been stolen.

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A global bond sell-off intensified on Wednesday following the latest in a string of US Treasury auctions to receive lukewarm demand from investors.

Treasury yields broadly rose to their highest levels in a month following an auction of new seven-year Treasury notes, which was met with tepid interest from buyers. The sell-off in US government debt had started the day before.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield rose to a peak of 4.64 per cent, its highest level since May. 

Meanwhile, Wall Street stocks traded lower on the day. The S&P 500 fell 0.6 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.4 per cent.