Jackson Hole is the story this week. Kevin Warsh — widely expected to succeed Powell at the Fed — used his pre-symposium appearances to push back on recession fears, but economists are questioning whether his communication style is up to the job. The Economist’s read is that his effort to talk bond yields lower is likely to fail. Markets will be watching every syllable from Wyoming; any signal on the pace of cuts, or lack of them, will move things.

On the UK, Andy Burnham has flown into Kyiv for Ukraine’s independence day — his first foreign trip as PM. The headline announcement is that Britain will share classified information about Storm Shadow components to help Ukraine develop its own long-range missile production capacity. That’s a meaningful escalation in the nature of UK support, moving from supply to technology transfer. The Coalition of the Willing is also meeting in Kyiv today to discuss air defence gaps, with Zelenskyy pressing allies hard on that front.

Business rates reform is back on the table. The government has confirmed a review of how rates are calculated in England and Wales, with pubs and hotels specifically flagged as potential beneficiaries. Nothing imminent, but worth watching for commercial property and hospitality-exposed positions.

Uber is facing a fine of €825 million from the Dutch Data Protection Authority over automated driver suspensions — the second-largest GDPR penalty on record. The case centres on algorithmic decision-making affecting workers, which sets a significant precedent for any platform business using AI to manage labour. Expect this to be cited in every boardroom conversation about automated HR systems in Europe.

The FT has a piece on private credit’s expansion into insurance, flagging that the opacity of the structures involved could carry systemic risk that isn’t yet priced. No specific analyst call to hang on it, but the framing — a “democratised” financial crisis is still a crisis — is pointed enough to be worth flagging if you have insurance or private credit exposure.

On the investment gap, the FT reports that the US is widening its lead over Europe on AI infrastructure spending — high-tech equipment and facilities. Germany’s investment tsar Martin Blessing is separately calling on Berlin to stop treating foreign capital with suspicion. Neither story is new in substance, but together they reinforce the structural drag on European tech valuations relative to US peers.

Warsh speaks again at Jackson Hole on Tuesday.

Sources

Al Jazeera, BBC News, FT, Guardian, The Economist, TechCrunch, Ars Technica — 2026-08-24