Is Wall Street's win the City's loss?

Evening all.

The fun on Wall Street continued in the last three months. Well, at least, on the trading desks.

That blistering winning streak showed no sign of coming to an end as equities divisions pocketed a combined $22bn in revenue for the third-quarter. The helping hand of swinging AI stocks and jitters around the US-Iran war kept the market frenzy swirling and traders’ tickets ringing.

Beyond the equities division, it was a bit of a foggier picture.

Investment banking slipped and rising interest rates proved to be a double-edged sword. It signals a mixed picture for when UK banks earnings seasons kicks off next week, with Barclays up first on Thursday.

Of course for the UK lenders, there is a bigger issue to broach - one that might actually benefit Wall Street.

UK banks’ third-quarter updates fall (rather inconveniently for some financial hacks) around the Budget. In Santander and Standard Chartered’s case, they will go the morning of on 28 October. Lloyds and Natwest will follow in the days after.

All chatter will surround a bank tax that some commentators are branding an if not when.

But could Wall Street snipe a subtle win here? JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon and Citi chief Dame Jane Fraser have already made their perspectives clear on any changes to the UK rate. Some have suggested they may have nothing to worry about.

Discussions have begun to crop up over a possible exemption for international banks from any tax raid. One analyst told me the banks would be “rightly furious” should this occur.

Wall Street, on the other hand, may have another reason to cheer. That is say for Dimon, who has already come out against a UK-focused target, saying it would be “just wrong”.

It’s lovely to see some trans-Atlantic friendliness.

Read more on Wall Street’s bumper quarter here.

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Lidl is the fastest-growing grocer in the UK, according to new figures my colleague Felix Armstrong has been digging into.

The German discounter held 8.6 per cent of the UK’s grocer market in the 12 weeks to October, up from 8.2 per cent a year ago. 

It marks a major win over its top rival Asda, who suffered the furthest fall in market share. The supermarket’s chief executive, Giles Hurley, has hit out at rivals for supposedly misleading shoppers by using loyalty discounts to inflate the apparent value of savings.

You can reach Felix at [email protected]

We had a top scoop in our pages this morning from my colleague Maurcio Alencar, who hears Healey and Burnham are drawing up plans to slash the cost of hiring under-25-year-olds.

A move to tackle the number of young people not in employment, education or training (Neets) by reducing hiring costs is likely to feature in Healey’s statement on 28 October, sources said.

Options could include extending reliefs on employers’ National Insurance contributions or offering a tax holiday to companies for a period of time after hiring a young person. Employers do not need to pay NICs on hires under the age of 21. 

Contact Mauricio at [email protected]

Plus500 wheeled out ambitions plans for a super-app this week - how exciting!

Only the London-listed firm said it would only be available to US customers on its launch in early 2027. Now call me a cynic, but that set off alarm bells of an all too familiar City story.

I dug into what might lay ahead for the fintech firm in my column this week.

One more from Felix to round us off for the evening. He has been tracking a feud at the top of an interior designer favoured by the King.

Patrick Lewis, who sits on the board of London-listed Sanderson Design Group, warned the boss of LBV Asset Management against “potentially defamatory allegations” after he questioned the pay packets of the company’s executives. 

LBV has been pushing to remove former National Lottery boss Dame Dianne Thompson, Sanderson’s chairwoman, over the design group’s drift towards “inaction and inertia”. 

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