Tracking

Shareholder agm briefly adjourned after protesters wearing T-shirts labelled ‘No more big oil’ burst into songThe chair of NatWest was forced to defend the bank against accusations of “climate backtracking” at a chaotic annual shareholder meeting, which was temporarily suspended owing to singing protesters.Not long after the meeting began in Edinburgh, it was adjourned for about half an hour after a protester interrupted Rick Haythornthwaite’s opening speech. Continue reading...

Shareholders including the Church of England back call for protest votes against the bank’s chair NatWest is at risk of an embarrassing showdown at its shareholder meeting this week, as investors and leading scientists call for an urgent reversal of what they describe as “climate backtracking”.Campaigners, including ShareAction, are calling for protest votes against the bank’s chair, Rick Haythornthwaite, at its annual meeting in Edinburgh on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Officials warn department will lose access to database of 26,000 verified cases by cutting fundingThe Foreign Office unit tracking potential breaches of international law by Israel in Gaza and more recently Lebanon has been closed because of cuts within the department, the Guardian can reveal.The decision to shut the international humanitarian law cell follows a review by Olly Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office dismissed last week by the prime minister over the Peter Mandelson scandal. Continue reading...

• The International Monetary Fund's Executive Board concluded its 2026 Article IV Consultation on April 2, stating there is "little room to cut interest rates in 2026" despite moderating inflation expectations. • The IMF projects U.S. GDP growth will reach 2.4% in 2026, up from 2.0% in 2025, while the federal funds rate is forecast to decline only from 3.6% to 3.4% — representing barely a single rate cut for the entire year. • Inflation is on track to hit the 2% target by early 2027, but the IMF warns that growth will peak this year and slowly decay toward 1.8%, while U.S. debt continues climbing annually.

• The S&P 500 has fallen 4.7% in March 2026, marking its worst month since March 2025, as investors navigate uncertainty surrounding the Iran conflict following U.S. and Israel airstrikes at the end of February. • The index is down 4.2% year to date and is heading for its first quarterly decline since Q1 2025, with the S&P 500 closing down 0.4% on March 24, the Dow Jones down 0.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite down 0.8%. • DataTrek co-founder Nicholas Colas identified that all three major factors historically responsible for large calendar-year stock market declines are present in 2026, validating investor concerns about market volatility.