French bonds stumble, the Nasdaq leads and Tesco eyes Majestic Wine

Bonds, savers and a former Fed chair

Two pieces on government debt appeared over the weekend, and they do not pull in the same direction. On Saturday morning the Wall Street Journal published "How the French Bond Trade Backfired on Investors". The title gives its verdict before the first line. A position in French government bonds went against those who held it, and it was familiar enough to be called the French bond trade. The headline does not say who those investors were, how large the trade had grown or what it cost them. This note will not supply the missing figures.

This is Money offered a different angle early on Sunday. Hamish McRae's column runs under the headline "Bond vigilantes do savers a favour". Bond vigilantes are investors who sell a government's debt when they doubt its finances, which pushes up the cost of its borrowing. McRae's case, as the headline puts it, is that this pressure has a beneficiary, and that the beneficiary is the saver. The column is presented as McRae's own view.

In Washington, the weekend's news about the central bank was legal rather than financial. The Guardian reported late on Friday that the Department of Justice has declined to reopen an investigation into Jay Powell, whom the headline describes as a former chair of the Federal Reserve. The story was filed at 22:32 UTC.

Wall Street leans on the Nasdaq

Friday's session in New York ended higher. The Wall Street Journal's closing report was headlined "Nasdaq Leads Stocks Higher as Hiring Softens". The two halves of that headline belong together. Stocks rose, the Nasdaq rose most, and the backdrop was evidence that American employers are hiring at a softer pace. The headline gives neither the size of the gains nor the hiring numbers behind them.

Two and a half hours later the same paper published a longer look at the market's shape. "AI Is Squeezing Out the Rest of the Stock Market" describes, in its headline alone, a market in which companies tied to artificial intelligence take up more of the room while the rest are pushed towards the edges. Its date, 2 October, places it beside the Friday close.

The Journal carried both stories on the same evening.

Further east, the South China Morning Post looked at where Chinese money might settle in South-east Asia. Its Sunday piece sets three markets against one another. Singapore stands for comfort and Thailand serves as the price comparison. Malaysia, according to the headline, offers Chinese investors the first at prices lower than the second. The article was published at 03:00 UTC, late morning in Hong Kong.

Deal talk and dilemmas in Britain

British deal talk filled the Sky News business pages. On Saturday the broadcaster reported that Tesco, the supermarket group, is weighing a takeover bid for Majestic Wine. Sky called the possible approach a shock. The report describes deliberation rather than an offer, and the headline names no price.

The day before, Sky had reported on Monzo. Talks over a £10bn bid for the bank have come to an end, and TPG has joined the race for a stake. The contest has moved from the whole of the business to a part of it. The word "race" implies other contenders, though Sky's headline does not name them. The report was published at 18:26 on Friday.

The Guardian on Sunday turned to manufacturing. Its report says the UK car industry faces a "difficult trade-off" between Chinese and EU markets. The headline does not say which way carmakers are leaning, or what the choice would cost them on either side. The article's web address refers to "made in Europe" laws.

Euronews, meanwhile, published its ranking of the best places to retire abroad. The top spot has moved outside Europe. Six of the top ten remain within it. The ranking went up at 05:00 UTC on Sunday, in the same minute as the Guardian's car industry report.