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Monday newspaper round-up: UK business output, electric cars, inflation

(Sharecast News) - British businesses' output has fallen for the sixth month in a row amid a supply chain crisis, energy price rises and a shortages of workers, according to a closely watched survey of big employers. UK business output hit its lowest level since March during the last national coronavirus lockdown, according to the accountancy firm BDO. Its measure fell from 105.23 points in September to 103.35 points in October. - Guardian The UK's long-haul airlines will put the worst of the pandemic - as well as old rivalries - behind them on Monday morning, when British Airways and Virgin Atlantic take off simultaneously at Heathrow for the first transatlantic flights carrying leisure travellers to the US since Covid-19 closed borders in March 2020. The bosses of Virgin and BA said it was a "pivotal moment" for the battered industry, with both airlines having registered enormous losses and shed thousands of staff during 20 months of restricted travel. - Guardian

Drivers making the switch to electric vehicles risk being forced to spend even more amid rising battery costs, experts have warned, in a blow to Britain's green ambitions. The cost of lithium battery cells is rising for the first time after years of decline, with strained lithium supplies adding to rising prices of other cell materials. - Telegraph

A British biotech start-up that has created rapid PCR tests to stop coronavirus outbreaks on film sets has raised £15m to develop tests that can diagnose whether people have Covid-19, the flu or a cold at the same time. Newcastle-based QuantuMDx said it had secured the latest cash from Hong Kong venture capital firm Vita Spring, coming just eight months after it raised £11m in a round that included the Government's Future Fund. - Telegraph

Royal London, Britain's biggest mutual insurer, is considering plans to resurrect its offer to buy LV= if members at its smaller rival rebel over the terms of its controversial demutualisation. Bosses at Royal London have been monitoring the situation and believe LV= members might balk at the small rewards being offered and prefer a deal that preserves its mutual ethos. - The Times

The UK will soon see the most accurate and detailed measure of inflation in its history as the nation's official statistics body begins to collect price and transaction data directly from supermarket checkout scanners. In a significant move to modernise the way that prices are collected to measure inflation, the Office for National Statistics is to start incorporating data taken from scanners in grocery stores across the UK. - The Times

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Thursday newspaper round-up: JCB, M&S, smart meters
(Sharecast News) - The British digger maker JCB, owned by the billionaire Bamford family, continued to build and supply equipment for the Russian market months after saying it had stopped exports because of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the Guardian can reveal. Russian customs records show that JCB, whose owners are major donors to the Conservative party, continued to make new products available for Russian dealers well after 2 March 2022, when the company publicly stated that it had "voluntarily paused exports" to Russia. - Guardian
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Brexit border outages, Boeing, Stellantis
(Sharecast News) - Lorries carrying perishable food and plants from the EU are being held for up to 20 hours at the UK's busiest Brexit border post as failures with the government's IT systems delay imports entering Britain. Businesses have described the government's new border control checks as a "disaster" after IT outages led to lorries carrying meat, cheese and cut flowers being held for long periods, reducing the shelf life of their goods and prompting retailers to reject some orders. - Guardian
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Tesco, OpenAI, housebuilding
(Sharecast News) - Tesco is facing criticism from "shocked" charities who say they are struggling to distribute unwanted food to homeless and hungry people after they claim the retailer brought in rules that mean unwanted food can only be collected in the evening. The supermarket group has switched to a new system which asks charities to pick up unwanted food, such as items reaching their best before date, only in the evening when a store is closing rather than the following morning, the charities have claimed. - Guardian
Monday newspaper round-up: BT, ultra-long mortgages, Fever-Tree
(Sharecast News) - BT has said it is increasingly using artificial intelligence to help it detect and neutralise threats from hackers targeting business customers amid repeated attacks on companies. The £10.5bn group is aiming to build up its business protecting customers from online criminals and has patented technology that uses AI to analyse attack data to allow companies to protect their tech infrastructure. British businesses are routinely facing hacking attempts, and some recent high-profile victims have included including the outsourcer Capita, Royal Mail and British Airways. - Guardian

Important information: This information is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment you should speak to one of Fidelity’s advisers or an authorised financial adviser of your choice. When you are thinking about investing in shares, it’s generally a good idea to consider holding them alongside other investments in a diversified portfolio of assets. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future returns.

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