Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Thursday, November 18th.

And this is your FT News briefing.

As gas prices continue their ascent, Joe Biden fingers American oil companies,

and Europe's common currency falls to a low point against the dollar.

Plus, some electric vehicle companies haven't sold a single car, but they have bigger market caps

than the world's leading automakers. What gives?

The very short answer is that it's completely crazy.

There you have it.

The FT's Peter Campbell will talk more about what investors might be thinking.

I'm Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day.

Now, if you've filled up your gas tank lately, you know that prices at the pump are surging.

We've reported on supply and demand causes.

Now, President Joe Biden wants US regulators to investigate leading oil companies

to see if they're engaging in potentially illegal conduct that's leading to higher fuel prices.

Here's the FT's Lauren Vidor in Washington.

So in this letter that the president sent to the FT C chair, he identified a couple of things.

The main issue that he's flagging here is that he believes that profits for these companies

are going up. Their costs are going down and yet prices for consumers are rising pretty fast.

And as a result, the White House is basically saying something doesn't add up here.

Lauren, Biden's called on OPEC the oil producing group to produce more oil to ease price pressures.

And the oil alliances basically ignored him. So is what Biden's doing now a populist move

to show American voters he's trying something else to deal with the rising fuel prices?

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