Closing summary
Bitcoin has just broken through $83,000 for the first time, on hopes that president-elect Donald Trump will favour cryptocurrencies when he returns to the White House.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency reached a record high of $83,460, up by 9%. The price has more than doubled from around $37,000 a year ago.
The Trump trade has spread throughout financial markets since his victory became clear last Wednesday, with the dollar gaining in value as investors await a high-spending US government, which would limit the Federal Reserve’s room for interest rate cuts.
The dollar rose by 0.6% on Monday against a trade-weighted basket of currencies, with the euro dropping to its lowest since May, falling by 0.7% to $1.0641. The pound was also down, by 0.46% to $1.2862.
Stocks on Wall Street have hit fresh highs and European shares are also pushing higher.
Trump has in the past called bitcoin a “scam against the dollar”, but he changed tack during the recent US presidential election campaign, courting the crypto community and appearing at industry events. That has created an expectation of a relaxation of rules to make it easier for retail savers to invest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies – although Trump has not specified any policies.
NatWest has bought back shares worth £1bn from the UK government, as the privatisation of the bailed-out bank continues after a plan to offer a chunk of the stock to retail investors was abandoned.
The government and NatWest said on Monday that the Treasury’s holding will drop from 14.2% to 11.4%, after the sale of shares at a price of about £3.81, the bank’s closing price on Friday.
The sale means the government has now recouped more than £20bn from the sale of shares that it has held since a £46bn bailout in 2008 during the financial crisis, when the Treasury was forced to step in to prevent the bank, then called Royal Bank of Scotland, from going under. The government owned 84% of NatWest when it was part-nationalised.
Our other main stories:
Thank you for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow. Take care – JK
Updated
Switzerland's Six Group to buy Aquis Exchange
Switzerland’s exchange operator Six Group has struck a deal to buy Aquis Exchange, a UK-based trading exchange and data provider, in a deal worth £194m.
The offer is for 727p in cash for every Aquis share, representing a 120% premium to Friday’s closing price. It has been unanimously recommend by Aquis directors, according to a statement. The Aquis share price more than doubled to 705p on the news.
The takeover would be the biggest for Six since its acquisition of Bolsas y Mercados Espanoles, which runs Spain’s stock exchange, for €2.8bn in 2020. The company said the deal will allow it to expand its exchange business beyond Switzerland and Spain and add the UK firm’s technology and data products.
