McDonald’s Corp says it’s working on technology outage impacting some of its restaurants – business live | Business

The British public’s expectations for inflation over the coming year have fallen to a near three-year low, according to a Bank of England survey.

People are now expecting price growth in the year ahead to fall to 3%, while in November they had expected it to move to 3.3%.

This is the lowest level in nearly three years and is closer to the long-term average, and will bolster the case for interest rate cuts this year.

Here is our full story on Vodavone selling its Italian business to Swisscom.

Vodafone is selling its Italian business to Swisscom for €8bn (£6.8bn) cash and plans to return €4bn to shareholders.

The telecoms company said it had reached an agreement to sell Vodafone Italy as part of wider plans to reshape its European operations and that some of the proceeds would be returned to investors via share buybacks.

Vodafone and Swisscom have agreed that Vodafone will continue to provide certain services to Swisscom for up to five years, as part of the deal.

The disposal in Italy is one of a number of steps that the chief executive, Margherita Della Valle, has made since she became chief executive to reposition Vodafone.

Her actions have also included a disposal in Spain and a proposed merger with Three in the UK – which would create the UK’s largest mobile phone operator.

McDonald’s has been hit by technical problems, leaving customers unable to order food in several countries including Australia and Japan.

McDonald’s Australia confirmed there was a technology outage and apologised to customers. A spokesperson said:

We are aware of a technology outage currently impacting our restaurants nationwide and are working to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

We apologise for the inconvenience and thank customers for their patience.

Some restaurants in Australia shut temporarily, while others reverted to taking orders with pen and paper, according to reports.

McDonald’s Japan said on X that many stores across the country had temporarily suspended operations because of a system failure. It issued an apology, and asked customers to “wait for a while until the service is restored”.

Elsewhere, including in the UK, people have been reporting problems on social media. One person posted on X: “All McDonald’s in Eastbourne closed due to technical issues.”

McDonald’s runs more than 1,450 restaurants across the UK and Ireland, and around 40,000 globally, and relies on an IT system to process in-store, drive-thru and online orders.

McDonald’s UK has been approached for comment.

After scaling new highs in recent days, bitcoin has retreated this morning to a one-week low in volatile trading, amid profit-taking and a rethink on US interest rate cuts.

The world’s best-known crypto currency is now trading at around $68,300, down 3.3% on the day, as traders take profits. Earlier, during the Asian session bitcoin fell more than 5% to $66,629.96.

Only yesterday, it had touched an all-time high of just under $74,000 ($73,699.99).

City Index analyst Matt Simpson said:

Bitcoin has an established history of getting volatile and ruthless after hitting a record high.

And not only did it recently hit a record high, but it looks like the Federal Reserve won’t be as dovish as traders had hoped.

US data out yesterday showed that that while US retail sales rebounded less than expected in February, producer prices increased more than forecast.

Markets reacted by paring the chances of Fed interest rate cuts beginning in June, with futures now pointing to a roughly 60% chance of a rate cut that month, down from roughly 74% a week ago.

Bitcoin remains nearly 60% higher so far this year.

During the recent trading frenzy, the crypto currency was boosted by the approval by the US financial regulator of exchange-traded funds [ETFs] in January – a basket of assets that can be bought and sold like shares on an exchange – that track the price of bitcoin.

BlackRrock, the world’s biggest asset manager, runs the biggest bitcoin ETF, which has seen $15.5bn flow into it since the start of the year.

Then on Monday, the UK financial regulator said it would “not object” to investment exchanges creating a UK-listed market segment for cryptoasset-backed exchange traded notes [cETNs], a financial product that can be traded like a stock – although it will not permit the sale of these cETNs to members of the public.

Another major factor behind the recent bull run is the “halving” event in April (this happens every four years) when the number of new bitcoin entering the market will be permanently reduced by 50%.

Politicians and regulators have been clear about the dangers of investing in crypto because it is so volatile. But industry leaders believe it is the future of finance.

Oil prices have slipped 0.2% this morning but are on track for a near-4% gain this week.

The Paris-based think tank, the International Energy Agency, yesterday raised its forecasts for global oil demand higher and predicted a small oil deficit this year, as the Opec cartel and allies are expected to extend their output cuts. US stockpiles of crude fell unexpectedly.

Brent crude is trading 16 cents lower at $85.26 a barrel while US crude is at $81.1 a barrel.

House prices in China’s major cities continued to fall in February, as the country’s property slump deepened.

Average prices for new homes in the most affluent cities fell 1% from a year earlier, while those for second-hand homes dropped 6.5%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

The NBS published its 70-city housing prices data, which showed primary and secondary market prices declining for the 9th and 10th consecutive months respectively.

New home prices have dropped 4.9% and secondary market values are down 10.1% since their respective peaks in 2021.

In the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, new home prices fell by 4.6%and 4.8%, respectively. This week, the credit rating agency Moody’s downgraded the debt of Vanke, a large state-backed developer based in Shenzhen.

Analysts at ING said in a note:

Within the NBS’s 70-city sample, the secondary market prices of 46 cities have now seen double-digit declines from their peak, with three of those 46 cities seeing declines of over 20%. The primary market has fared relatively better, with two cities still at all-time highs, and only 11 of 70 cities seeing a double-digit decline from their peaks.

They said that stabilising the property market remains key to the Chinese economy.

Given the heavy weighting of property in household portfolios, it is of the utmost importance for China to stabilise the property market if it is to restore confidence. Declining property prices will create a negative wealth effect, acting as a headwind to consumption. Measures including scrapping purchase restrictions, property project whitelists, and the February cut to the five-year loan prime rate to help lower mortgage rates are steps in the right direction, but further supportive policies may still be needed. Establishing a trough for house prices would go a long way towards stabilising sentiment.

We anticipate that real estate will remain the main drag on growth in 2024, and this drag is likely to persist over the medium term, as it will take time to work through excess housing inventories. Real estate investment is likely to remain in negative growth for the year, and the property sector and connected industries will likely continue to see pressure for consolidation.

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

The UK’s competition watchdog has said it will investigate the country’s biggest housebuilder Barratt’s proposed acquisition of its rival Redrow for £2.5bn. It said:

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is considering whether it may be the case that this transaction, if carried into effect, will result in the creation of a relevant merger situation under the merger provisions of the Enterprise Act 2002 and, if so, whether the creation of that situation may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the United Kingdom for goods or services.

The two companies last month reached an agreement over an all-share offer from Barratt, which will cement its position as the country’s largest housebuilder.

The merged group, to be called Barratt Redrow, is expected to build about 23,000 homes a year and have a turnover of more than £7bn. The combined market value is around £7.2bn.

Berkeley Group, an upmarket house builder, said today that sales between November and February were a third lower than a year earlier but added:

Enquiry levels are good, with customers looking for the prevailing political and economic uncertainty to recede and interest rates to begin to fall.

Pricing has been stable across our sites during the period and above business plan levels, while build cost inflation is negligible across most trades.

Berkeley reaffirmed that it aims to deliver at least £1.5bn of pre-tax profits in the three years to 30 April 2026, including a £550m profit this year – down from £604m last year and returning to 2022 levels.

Anthony Codling, housing analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said:

A short and snappy trading update from Berkeley Group this morning saying that everything is on track despite those pesky market headwinds and uncertainties. Berkeley seems to be able to deliver whatever the weather.

In other corporate news, Vodafone has sold its Italian business to Swisscom for €8bn, which will merge it with its Italian subsidiary Fastweb. The deal will create Italy’s second-biggest fixed-line broadband operator behind TIM.

Yesterday’s mixed bag of US economic data, which pointed at higher-than-expected inflation and lower-than-expected spending in the US, forced the market to reconsider the Federal Reserve expectations.

The probability of a June interest rate cut fell to 60%, bond yields jumped, the dollar index rose sharply and stocks declined.

The Agenda