A $6bn buyback, and a bond market that wanted more

The buyback that underwhelmed

The US Treasury said on Wednesday it would repurchase $6bn of bonds maturing in ten to twenty years. The market's response was not gratitude. The Wall Street Journal reported the ten-year yield jumping as the plan disappointed investors, and followed with a piece under the heading that Scott Bessent's latest buyback move left investors wanting more. Two stories, one message: the size was the problem.

Attention now turns to the Federal Reserve, and to a margin so fine it barely reads as a margin at all. CNBC set out the case that the coming rate call could hang on a few hundredths of a percentage point — the sort of distinction that decides nothing about the economy and everything about the decision.

Gold held steady ahead of US inflation data, according to the Journal's commodities coverage. In Tokyo, the Nikkei closed 0.6 per cent lower, dragged down by construction and retail names.

In London the argument is about direction rather than decimals. Andrew Bailey told This is Money there is "no secret plan to raise interest rates", a denial delivered against a backdrop of soaring mortgage costs hitting families. Denials of that kind are rarely issued unprompted.

Listings, and where they land

The Texas Stock Exchange is close to winning its first major listing away from New York, the Journal reported on Wednesday. A single defection is not a migration, but the venue has spent two years arguing that it could take business from the incumbents, and the argument now has a name attached to it.

In Asia, the SCMP reported that the Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek has tapped underwriters including Citic Securities for an initial public offering, according to sources. The Journal, separately, published a guide to what is known about Anthropic's planned IPO. Two of the most discussed private names in AI are moving, at different speeds, towards public markets.

London's contribution to the week was a demand rather than a deal. Some of the country's leading fintech firms called for the abolition of stamp duty on share purchases, arguing to City A.M. that the 0.5 per cent levy is part of why the capital's IPO pipeline has thinned. The complaint is familiar; the signatories are not the usual ones.

There was at least one piece of good news from the London market. Computacenter, a recent addition to the FTSE 100, saw its shares reach a record high as it took advantage of demand generated by the AI boom, This is Money reported. A reseller and services business, not a chip designer, and it has done well out of the same wave.

Elsewhere in the governance file, the Guardian's Nils Pratley pushed back on the idea that shareholder votes on boardroom pay amount to pointless administrative burden.

Tariffs reach the drinks aisle

Canada's retaliatory tariffs took effect on Tuesday, the Journal reported. Within a day the consequences had a corporate example. The BBC said Sapporo will move some of its beer production from Canada to the United States in response to the new duties — a manufacturing decision made in weeks, on a plant built over years.

The same broadcaster published a longer assessment of what tariffs will really cost Canadians and Americans, which is the question that will be settled slowly, in grocery bills, long after the announcements have stopped being news.

Britain's hospitality and drinks businesses are working through a different set of pressures. Itsu blamed inflation and the government's tax rises for its rising costs, City A.M. reported, on the same day Sky News said Bridgepoint is exploring a sale of its stake in the Japanese-style chain. City A.M. also argued that Pernod Ricard's latest results lay bare the difficulties facing Scotch whisky.

Not every result was gloomy. Hall & Woodhouse, the Dorset brewer behind Badger Beer, doubled its profit, and is preparing a tie-up with James May.