Unhedged

What started as a boom year for mergers on Wall Street has started to fade. There have indeed been some megamergers, such as the $111bn Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery deal. But as the cost of borrowing has ticked up and markets have pared back gains, the appetite for new deals has waned.US financial commentator Rob Armstrong, finance and markets editor Arash Massoudi and outgoing US finance editor James Fontanella-Khan talk about the slowdown and what might bring the sector back to form.

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You can email Robert Armstrong and Katie Martin at unhedged@ft.com.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Anthropic’s initial public offering is shaping up to be the largest ever. And the firm’s recently released prospectus explains how all of this is part of an enterprise for the benefit of the whole of humanity. Rob Armstrong and John Foley, head of Lex, go beyond the high-flying language to unpack why Anthropic is so hard to value and just how worried we should be about the "existential risks to humanity” thing.

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Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Government bonds keep the lights on for countries all over the world and set the cost of money for everyone from the US to your mortgage lender. But even as bonds experience a rocky year, the public seems unaware and experts can’t quite explain what’s going on. The FT’s Robin Wigglesworth, author of A Fabulous Debt and host of The Story of Money podcast, tells Katie Martin why he thinks bonds are hard to understand and whether we’re approaching a slow-rolling crisis. Plus, Robin goes long witches, and Katie shorts superyachts.

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For a free 30-day trial to the Unhedged newsletter go to: https://www.ft.com/unhedgedoffer.
You can email Robert Armstrong and Katie Martin at unhedged@ft.com.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer John Healey will deliver his annual budget on October 28. And with the UK facing the highest borrowing costs in the G7, the spending item he will be most keen to get under control will be the government’s interest payments bill. The FT’s economics commentator Chris Giles tells Katie Martin why dull is good when it comes to public finances.

For a free 30-day trial to the Unhedged newsletter go to: https://www.ft.com/unhedgedoffer.

You can email Robert Armstrong and Katie Martin at unhedged@ft.com.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tech stocks and bonds took a kicking on Thursday, adding urgency to a question investors have been asking themselves for months now: is the AI boom about to go splat? Katie Martin and Rob Armstrong sense a great disturbance in the Force. But if the bubble really is about to burst, where can investors run for shelter? Plus, Rob shorts the letter K, and Katie shorts protein recycling.

For a free 30-day trial to the Unhedged newsletter go to: https://www.ft.com/unhedgedoffer.

You can email Robert Armstrong and Katie Martin at unhedged@ft.com.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.