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Price rises lift Unilever sales; markets await ECB interest rate decision and US GDP
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Price rises lift Unilever sales; markets await ECB interest rate decision and US GDP
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Ex-chief executive breached Nigel Farage’s privacy, watchdog rules
Ex-chief executive breached Nigel Farage’s privacy, watchdog rules
‘Every night is sleepless’  
The people falling behind on mortgage repayments
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Barclay family’s £1bn ‘back door’ offer for Telegraph alarms rival bidders
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Earnings report reveals most profitable quarter in years
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Ford and United Auto Workers’ union negotiators reach potential new deal
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Boss set to cut jobs from low-carbon division
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FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried plans to testify at criminal fraud trial
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EU carmakers urge Von der Leyen to delay post-Brexit tariffs
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Oxfam  
Workers in UK to hold strike ballot over ‘poverty pay’
Money  
University students in England ‘have 50p a week to live on after rent’
Storm Babet  
UK farmers warn of rotting crops after flooding
Today's agenda
Unilever has reported underlying sales growth of 5.2% for the third quarter of the year, after it raised its prices again.

Average prices rose by 5.8% year on year in the quarter, while sales volumes fell by 0.6% – suggesting some customers shifted to cheaper brands instead.

That is a slowdown in price rises – in the first half of 2023, Unilever lifted its prices by 9.4%.

Unilever, which has been passing on its higher costs to consumers, reports that prices continued to moderate as inflation eased.

Underlying sales volumes were positive in Unilever’s beauty and wellbeing, personal care and home care, while sales volumes fell again in nutrition and ice-cream.

The European Central Bank could press the pause button on its rate rise programme today, after raising interest rates to record levels.

The ECB’s governing council is meeting in Athens to set monetary policy across the eurozone. Many economists predict it will resist pushing interest rates higher, given the recent slowdown in price rises.

Last month, the ECB lifted its deposit rate to 4% – the highest since the euro was launched in 1999.

Since then, inflation across the eurozone has fallen to 4.3% in September, down from 5.2% in August. That is still more than twice the ECB’s target of 2% but a move in the right direction.

The latest growth data from the US is due today, and likely to confirm that it continues to fend off recession fears.

US GDP is forecast to have grown at an annualised rate of about 4.3% in July-September, more than twice as fast as the 2.1% recorded in April-June.

Such growth would show the strength of US consumer spending, in the face of higher interest rates as the Federal Reserve tries to slow US inflation.

The music rights fund Hipgnosis faces a crunch vote on its future, at its AGM today, after it scrapped plans to pay a dividend.

Shareholders will vote on whether to sell a fifth of Hipgnosis’s portfolio for $440m (£364m) to a Blackstone fund, and whether the company should continue at all.

The agenda
• 11am BST: CBI’s distributive trades survey of UK retail
• 1.15pm BST: European Central Bank interest rate decision
• 1.30pm BST: US Q3 GDP report (first estimate)
• 1.30pm BST: US weekly jobless report
• 1.45pm BST: European Central Bank press conference

We’ll be tracking all the main events throughout the day ...
Opinion
Editorial  
The Guardian view on bankers’ bonuses: the sky’s the limit (again)
The Guardian view on bankers’ bonuses: the sky’s the limit (again)
 

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