Tuesday newspaper round-up: Retailers, Elon Musk, LME

(Sharecast News) - UK retailers have launched a barrage of discounts to try to clear stock after a month of falling sales as soaring inflation and bills hit households' budgets and a warm autumn reduced demand for coats and boots. On Monday, New Look was offering a 50% discount off all products, Asos up to 80% off almost all lines and Boohoo 30% off everything, with many other fashion retailers - including Marks & Spencer, River Island and Matalan - offering between 20% and 30% cuts. - Guardian Campaigners have called for an immediate ban on pre-payment meter (PPM) installations made under court warrants because of fears that energy suppliers are using them to disconnect the poorest, most indebted customers "by the back door". Energy firms' licence conditions protect many vulnerable people from formal disconnection over the winter, but the End Fuel Poverty Coalition said transferring households on to PPMs, which require regular top-ups and charge for energy at a higher rate, often prompted people in debt to "self-disconnect". - Guardian

Elon Musk has threatened to "go to war" with Apple after accusing the iPhone-maker of stifling free speech on Twitter and threatening to block its app. Tesla and Twitter chief executive Mr Musk launched a tirade against Apple and its chief executive Tim Cook, pitting the world's richest man against the world's most valuable company. - Telegraph

The petrol forecourts business owned by the billionaire Issa brothers has been accused of profiteering after gross fuel profits rose by 20 per cent to $1.7 billion. EG Group, run by Mohsin and Zuber Issa, reported that total revenues rose by 29 per cent to $25 billion for the year to September 30. - The Times

The London Metal Exchange feared that a record rise in the price of nickel in March would cause $20 billion of margin calls that would drive a wave of defaults across the market, it has emerged. Documents filed by the exchange at the High Court yesterday have shed light on the scale of the chaos that gripped its nickel market in the early hours of March 8 when the price of its benchmark three-month futures contract on the metal briefly hit an all-time high of more than $100,000 a tonne. - The Times