Closing summary
Global stocks and the dollar have sold off after Donald Trump imposed limits on chip sales to China.
Nvidia said it expects a $5.5bn (£4.1bn) hit after his administration barred the chip designer from selling crucial artificial intelligence chips in China.
Trump’s tariffs will send international trade into reverse this year, depressing global economic growth, the World Trade Organization has warned.
In its latest snapshot of the global trading system, the Geneva-based institution says it had previously expected goods trade to expand by a healthy 2.7% this year. As a result of Washington’s trade policy, it is now forecasting a 0.2% decline.
Inflation in the UK and eurozone has slowed, to 2.6% and 2.2% respectively, increasing pressure on the Bank of England and the European Central Bank to cut interest rates further.
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Spotify hit by service outage
Spotify has been hit by a service outage which has left many users unable to stream music or use the firm’s app.
The company said in a statement posted on X that it was “aware of some issues” and that it was “checking them out”.
We’re aware of some issues right now and are checking them out!
— Spotify Status (@SpotifyStatus) April 16, 2025
Many users say they have unable to play audio not already downloaded to their music library, with others say the platform’s app is slow or unresponsive.
Spotify has not confirmed the cause of the issue.
According to service status website Downdetector, problems with the music streaming service began at around 1pm, and more than 20,000 reports had been logged by the monitoring site from users flagging issues.
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