The UK's energy partner.

Learn more at equinore.

Good morning.

From the newsroom of the Financial Times. Today is Thursday January 31st and this is your FT news briefing

Today Tesla loses its finance chief and issues a warning for the coming year

Facebook beats forecasts for revenue and earnings,

and Cosmetics Group Avon announces another round of layoffs.

Then the F.T.'s markets commentator Michael Mackenzie

gives us the big takeaways from the Federal

Reserve's first policy setting meeting of 2019.

I'm Eric Krupky and here's the news you need to start your day.

Tesla reported fourth quarter earnings on Wednesday, and though the electric carmaker had a brief

respite from intense financial pressures at the end of 2018, it said that 2019 was shaping up to be a challenging year.

Tesla managed to overcome some of its production challenges with the all-important model 3,

but said it expected a lag in shipping the car to customers in Europe and China for the first time.

Tesla said that lag will hit sales for the current quarter.

Tesla also said that it was able to improve the amount of available cash it has on hand,

which initially soothed investors' worries about the company's ability to repay its debt.

Tesla shares climbed in after-hours trading as high as 4%, only to fall more than 4.5% during a call with analysts.

Thank you very much for your questions and Elon would like to have some closing remarks.

To the surprise of many listening, CEO Elon Musk ended the call with an announcement.

He said that Chief Finance Officer D-Pachahouja would be leaving the company.

...