Honey, I shrunk the economy
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 1 May 2025
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Microsoft posted better than expected quarterly earnings on Wednesday, Spain is trying to figure out what caused a massive power outage, and the Conservatives are bracing for heavy losses in local England elections. Plus, the FT’s Claire Jones explains what we can take away from the latest US GDP reading.
Mentioned in this podcast:
US and Ukraine sign natural resources deal
Microsoft shares jump after software giant’s earnings top forecasts
US economy contracts at 0.3% rate as Trump tariffs prompt import surge
Local elections: Tories braced for losses as England votes in five-party race
How did Spain’s electricity grid collapse?
The FT News Briefing is produced by Fiona Symon, Sonja Hutson, Kasia Broussalian, Ethan Plotkin, Lulu Smyth, and Marc Filippino. Additional help from Michela Tindera, Katie McMurran, Breen Turner, Sam Giovinco, Peter Barber, Michael Lello, David da Silva and Gavin Kallmann. Topher Forhecz is the FT’s executive producer. The FT’s global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. The show’s theme song is by Metaphor Music.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We're Equinor, an energy company searching for better. Currently, we supply 27% of the UK's gas, |
| 0:07.0 | 15% of its oil, and we're playing our part in the UK's energy transition. In 2023, we invested |
| 0:14.1 | 20% of our global gross spend in renewables and lower carbon solutions. Today, our wind farms power |
| 0:20.0 | 750,000 homes, and we expect this to grow to |
| 0:23.3 | over 7 million UK households. We're an energy company searching for better. Equinor.com.uk. |
| 0:34.4 | Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Thursday, May 1st, and this is your FT News briefing. |
| 0:41.3 | Microsoft showed up Wall Street yesterday, and Spain is still trying to figure out what caused this week's massive blackout. |
| 0:48.9 | Plus, the American economy contracted in the first quarter, but that's not the whole story. |
| 0:54.6 | I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to start your day. |
| 1:09.8 | Microsoft's first quarter earnings beat analyst expectations. |
| 1:13.7 | The tech giant yesterday said its cloud division increased revenue 20% from a year ago, |
| 1:19.3 | that's thanks to continued demand from artificial intelligence. |
| 1:23.2 | Investors were happy with the better than expected news. |
| 1:26.3 | Microsoft's shares jumped as much as 6% in after-hours |
| 1:29.8 | trading. |
| 1:37.4 | The U.S. economy contracted last quarter by a third of a percent. |
| 1:42.4 | Yesterday's GDP reading came in just below economist expectations, |
| 1:46.6 | and it's the first time since 2022 that it shrunk. Here with me now is the FTs U.S. |
| 1:52.6 | economics editor, Claire Jones. Hey, Claire. Hi, Mark. All right, so do me a favor, and tell me |
| 1:58.1 | about some of the dynamics at play that dragged down GDP last quarter. |
| 2:02.8 | So primarily this is a story about tariffs. Because businesses in the U.S. are anticipating very steep levies on their imports, they frontloaded their purchases. |
| 2:14.1 | So they bought a lot of goods from abroad. And the result of that has been that we've |
... |
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