This article is an on-site version of our FirstFT newsletter. Subscribers can sign up to our Asia, Europe/Africa or Americas edition to receive the newsletter every weekday. Explore all of our newsletters here
Today’s newsletter was delayed to bring you breaking news on the US election. We apologise for any inconvenience.
Today’s agenda: Netanyahu fires defence minister; AstraZeneca shares fall on China corruption probe; Netflix offices raided; Big Oil’s dirty legacy in Nigeria; and remembering Quincy Jones
Good morning. We head straight to the US, where results from one of the country’s tightest presidential elections are streaming in. Here’s the latest from our reporters on the ground as the world waits to see who will win the White House.
Where the race stands: Voting has ended in the US, with Donald Trump winning North Carolina and Georgia, two of the seven critical swing states. Early counts in the remaining battlegrounds show him performing well in crucial regions that Kamala Harris needs to maintain a path to victory. Republican-leaning Iowa, where a recent poll had suggested Harris was in the lead, has also been called for Trump. Apart from Georgia, the wins on both sides so far have been expected and have not changed the 2020 electoral map in which Trump lost to Joe Biden.
How markets are reacting: Traders betting on a Trump win pushed bitcoin to a record high and sent the dollar to its strongest level since July, while the Mexican peso, which often suffers when Trump is perceived as doing well, hit a two-year low. In Asia, the yen extended its fall against the dollar, sending its currency-sensitive stock market higher this morning. The Australian dollar and Singapore dollar also weakened.
What to watch: The election hinges on the remaining five battleground states of Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. The latter three are considered part of the “blue wall” states that have historically led to Democratic victories, but many votes remain uncounted. The most important figure to look for is 270, the number of electoral college votes needed to win. As of 2am Eastern time (6am GMT), Trump had a lead of 247 to 210.
Our correspondents on the ground will continue to bring you real-time updates in the coming hours. You can also follow our live election results map to get the latest numbers as states are called.
-
US Senate: Republicans will take control of Congress’s upper chamber, flipping a narrow Democratic majority and giving Trump more legislative power if he wins the presidency.
-
How we got here: From Trump’s courtroom drama to Joe Biden’s shock exit, here’s our timeline of American democracy’s remarkable ride in 2024.
Our free-to-read US Election Countdown newsletter is turning into White House Watch, where we’ll unpack what the election result means for Washington and the world. Sign up here to get today’s special edition.
And here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:
-
Results: BMW, Commerzbank, Marks and Spencer, Novo Nordisk, Pandora, Puma and Qualcomm report.
-
FT’s AI summit: The UK will provide businesses with a new platform to help with artificial intelligence risks, science and tech secretary Peter Kyle said ahead of his speech at today’s Future of AI summit in London by the Financial Times. Get your in-person pass here, and claim 10 per cent off with the code FTS10.
Five more top stories
1. Benjamin Netanyahu has fired his defence minister Yoav Gallant, citing “significant gaps” between them over the management of Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Gallant has been an important interlocutor with Washington, and a person familiar with the situation said the announcement of his sacking on US election day was not a coincidence. Here’s who will replace him.
2. AstraZeneca shares fell 8.4 per cent yesterday as a corruption purge involving its China chief risked spiralling wider. A Chinese publication yesterday reported that dozens of executives had been implicated in a probe of medical insurance fraud, days after the UK drugmaker said its China president was co-operating with “an ongoing investigation”. Read the full story.
3. French and Dutch financial authorities have raided the offices of Netflix in Paris and Amsterdam. The searches are part of a preliminary probe opened in November 2022 that was looking at potential “aggravated tax fraud laundering and infractions of labour law”, according to a person familiar with the situation. Read more about what authorities are investigating.
4. More than 50 companies have opposed the EU’s decision to delay its landmark deforestation law, saying it is causing uncertainty across business and putting investment at risk. The law bans goods made with certain commodities grown on deforested land from being sold in the bloc. Here’s more from the joint statement by Nestlé, Michelin and others.
5. Apple has warned investors that future products may never be as profitable as its iPhone business as it pushes into unproven new markets such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality headsets. The iPhone maker added the new warning on growth and profit margins in a list of “risk factors” facing the tech group’s business in its latest annual report.
The Big Read
The foreign companies that built Nigeria’s oil industry, including Shell and ExxonMobil, are exiting the polluted Niger Delta for easier, more lucrative operations elsewhere. But who will clean up the environmental mess left behind? Here’s more on Big Oil’s dirty legacy in Nigeria.
We’re also reading . . .
-
French politics: Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s plan to trim pensions has hit a nerve, with far-right leader Marine Le Pen calling it “stealing billions from our elderly”.
-
Saving Schroders: Read our profile of Richard Oldfield, the man tasked with turning around the FTSE 100 group whose shares just hit a decade low this week.
-
UK economy: Instead of its habitual “muddling through”, Britain needs a strategy that takes on its weaknesses to deliver growth, writes Martin Wolf.
Chart of the day
Harris and Trump have together spent $3.5bn in their race for the White House, making the 2024 presidential campaign the most expensive in US history. Roughly half of all spending has gone towards advertising and the media, according to an FT analysis of campaign finance filings.
Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.
Take a break from the news
Quincy Jones died this week, aged 91. In this interview with the FT from 2012, the legendary musician and producer talked about his work with some of the most popular artists of the 20th century, including Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra, and revealed how he learnt cockney rhyming slang from the actor Michael Caine.
