US inflation rises to 3.4%; global trade ‘drops 1.3%’ as Red Sea attacks disrupt shipping – as it happened | Business

Time to wrap up.

Here are today’s main stories:

John Lewis is bringing back its former fashion boss Peter Ruis to lead the department store chain – after more than a decade running retailers including Jigsaw and Anthropologie – in its latest effort to turn around the business.

The appointment of an experienced retailer, with 30 years in the industry including stints at Marks & Spencer, Ted Baker and Levi’s before joining John Lewis, and most recently as chief executive of Canada’s Indigo books and homewares chain, comes amid falling sales and profits at the department store.

Ruis, who worked at John Lewis between 2005 and 2013, will start next week, replacing Naomi Simcock, who has been interim boss since the abrupt exit of Pippa Wicks almost a year ago. Simcock will take up a new role as operations director for the chain.

Rupert Neate

The former head of recruitment at Goldman Sachs is suing the investment bank for more than £1m alleging that demanding him to be “working unreasonable and excessive hours” led to “physical and psychiatric injuries” and “wanting to take his own life”.

Ian Dodd, 55, who was Goldman’s global head of recruiting in London between 2018-2021, says in a personal injury claim at the high court that he developed a major depressive disorder and heart issues as a result of the workload placed on him by the US bank.

Lawyers for Dodd said in documents filed at the the high court made public this week, according to Bloomberg”:

“His onerous workload and the associated stress and uncertainty that he faced when working unreasonable and excessive hours, together with the failure of the defendant’s senior leadership partners to provide him with adequate support, culminated in him wanting to take his own life.”

More here:

Microsoft has overtaken Apple to become the world’s most valuable listed company today.

Shares in Microsoft rose 1.5% in early trading, giving it a market valuation of $2.888 trillion. Apple were down 0.3%, with a market capitalization of $2.887trn.

Both shares are a little lower now, though.

This is the first time since 2021 that Apple’s valuation has fallen below that of Microsoft, reports Reuters.

Apple has made a poor start to 2024, as concerns grow that demand for its products could weaken due to poor consumer demand.

Microsoft has benefitted from its close links to OpenAi, as investors back the potential of artificial intelligence.

Stocks have opened a little higher on Wall Street, as traders digest the rise in US inflation last month.

The S&P 500 index of US shares is up 0.2% at 4,793.75 points, and reportedly briefly traded above its record closing high set two years ago (which was 4,796.56).

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, of 30 major US stocks, is up 0.1%.

Inflation ticked higher in the United States last month as the Federal Reserve weighs the latest stage of its battle against price growth, my colleague Callum Jones reports.

The headline consumer price index increased at an annual pace of 3.4% in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from 3.1% in the previous month, and exceeding economists’ expectations of about 3.2%.

On a month-to-month basis, the index climbed 0.3%, from 0.1% in November. Housing costs drove the index higher, and were responsible for more than half the headline increase.

But there were some signs that inflation continued to soften in December. The so-called “core” consumer price index – a measure that does not include volatile food and energy prices – slowed to an annual rate 3.9%, from 4% the previous month.

More here.

Some better economic news: The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment support has fallen.

There were 202,000 fresh ‘initial claim’s for jobless support, a drop of 1,000 compared with the previous week.

That’s encouraging news for US workers; it suggests firms are holding onto staff. But that may disappoint the Fed, as a weakening labor market and rising unemployment would dampen inflation.