Yen sinks as dollar rises to 20-year high
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2022
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The US dollar surged to its highest level in two decades on Thursday, the US economy contracted unexpectedly in the first quarter, Twitter admits an ‘error’ in audience figures for the past three years, and Amazon shares fell after the company said it expects revenue growth to remain sluggish.
Mentioned in this podcast:
Falling sales and high costs weigh down Amazon earnings
US economy contracts for first time since mid-2020
Dollar surges to highest level in 20 years
Twitter admits overstating audience figures for 3 years
The FT News Briefing is produced by Fiona Symon and Marc Filippino. The show’s editor is Jess Smith. Additional help by Peter Barber, Michael Lello, David da Silva, and Gavin Kallmann. The show’s theme song is by Metaphor Music. Topher Forhecz is the FT’s executive producer. The FT’s global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The FT News Briefing is supported by Equinole, the UK's energy partner. |
| 0:06.3 | Learn more at equinole.co.uk |
| 0:09.9 | Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Friday, April 29th. |
| 0:13.9 | And this is your FT News Briefing. |
| 0:18.2 | We've got the tale of two big tech stocks and also two currencies that are going in very different |
| 0:23.9 | directions. One's the US dollar, the other's the yen. |
| 0:28.0 | The Bank of Japan is effectively throwing its hands up and saying, |
| 0:31.2 | yep, currency markets, you feel free to send the yen down to a 20-year low and we're going to |
| 0:35.2 | do nothing about it. Meanwhile, the US economy shrank in the first quarter of this year. |
| 0:40.6 | Plus, we've got some big news about Twitter. Well, I hope you didn't overstate that. |
| 0:45.6 | I'm Jess Smith in from ArcFilippino. And here's the news you need to start your day. |
| 0:50.6 | Amazon. Yesterday reported it's slowest revenue growth ever in the first quarter of this year. |
| 1:01.1 | That was due to a drop in online retail sales. The company missed Wall Street's estimates by |
| 1:06.8 | $4 billion, which really upset investors. Amazon shares saying 10% in after hours trading. |
| 1:13.7 | Apple, on the other hand, said revenues rose 9% over last year. |
| 1:18.3 | The standout division was Apple's services, like the App Store and iCloud subscriptions. |
| 1:23.4 | It had a record quarter. Revenues rose 17%. |
| 1:32.4 | The world's biggest economy shrank for the first time since mid-2020. That was just after |
| 1:38.3 | the start of the pandemic. In the first quarter of this year, US gross domestic product fell |
| 1:44.0 | nearly 1.5% on the year. So the biggest part of the move was driven by the widening of the trade |
| 1:51.1 | deficit, as well as some effect from lower business inventories. That's the FT's Kate Do Good. |
| 1:56.8 | The big story, though, is that the trade deficit widened because imports were so high. But what's |
... |
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