Good morning and welcome to FirstFT. In today’s newsletter:
Deadly flash flood hits Nepal’s border with China
Nvidia’s results beat Wall Street expectations
The end of Trumpsplaining
How chicken conquered the world
Hundreds of people have been reported missing and at least 160 confirmed dead after a huge flash flood swept through settlements on Nepal’s border with China yesterday.
Nepal police said 157 deaths had been confirmed from what Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah called an “unexpected thunderbolt of a natural disaster” on the Bhote Koshi, a river in the mountainous district of Rasuwa bordering Tibet.
The prime minister’s office said at least 85 security personnel, including from the army and police, were missing, while authorities had been unable to locate 484 tourists — 391 of them from other countries — as well as 60 employees at power projects in the affected area.
In China, state news agency Xinhua said that by last night, three deaths had been confirmed with 265 people missing from the vicinity of the Gyirong crossing on the country’s border with Nepal.
Images shared by Nepali authorities showed floodwaters wiping out buildings, bridges and roads. The prime minister’s office said 19 bridges and 40km of roads had been damaged.
Nepal’s foreign minister Shisir Khanal told parliament yesterday that an earthquake had reportedly struck Tibet at 8.37am Nepali time, and the flash flood was reported three minutes later. However, the US Geological Survey said additional analysis had shown that the earthquake was actually generated by a landslide. Read the full story.
Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:
Economic data: China publishes July industrial profit figures and Thailand reports trade data for the month.
Monetary policy: Central banks in South Korea and the Philippines announce rate decisions.
Earnings: Australian flag carrier Qantas Airways reports full-year preliminary results.
Five more top stories
1. Nvidia yesterday forecast the AI-fuelled boom in demand for computing power will continue well into next year as the $5tn chip giant reported another quarter of strong sales. The world’s most valuable company reported better than expected revenue of $96.2bn for the quarter to the end of July and forecast sales of about $108bn for the current quarter, beating Wall Street estimates of $104bn.
2. Hyundai will take on Toyota with a big hybrid push in the US as the world’s third-largest carmaker aims to capitalise on surging demand amid sliding electric vehicle sales in America. The South Korean group unveiled an aggressive product roadmap of more than 100 new launches and refreshes by 2030, of which 58 will be in North America.
3. Liquidators of the collapsed Chinese property group Evergrande can pursue PwC globally for audit failings, a Hong Kong judge has ruled, in a case that will test the Big Four accounting firms’ partnership network model. The liquidators are seeking about $8.4bn in damages from PwC International, the network’s global umbrella organisation, alongside its Hong Kong and mainland China affiliates, which were responsible for auditing Evergrande.
4. Meta has agreed to pay up to $18bn to settle its blockbuster legal battle with US states over alleged failures of child protection and social media addiction, in one of the largest legal settlements ever made by an individual US company. As part of the settlement, Meta has agreed to measures including imposing default daily limits and night-time blocks for teenage users of its social media apps.
5. US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent’s bond market intervention is pulling in the opposite direction to the Federal Reserve’s battle against inflation, big investors warned ahead of chair Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech. Wall Street has widely criticised Bessent’s surprise move last week to “at least double” the Treasury’s purchases of long-term US government debt.
Data centre finance
By 2030, tech companies are expected to pour $7tn into data centres — enough money to feed every person in China for three years. Hyperscalers have pushed ahead with vast projects but their scale is creating mounting risks for banks, insurers and private equity groups. The financing requirements are stretching Wall Street’s resourcefulness — and its resources.
We’re also reading . . .
Arctic sea route: South Korea is hoping a polar shipping highway will reduce reliance on chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz and revive the ailing city of Busan.
The end of Trumpsplaining: The pretence that the US president is a grand strategist will not survive the Iran fiasco, writes Janan Ganesh.
Italian banks: Private equity helped create a new generation of wealthy Italians. Private banks are now in a bidding war to serve them, write Ortenca Aliaj and Mercedes Ruehl.
Chart of the day
For much of the last century, chicken was not the obvious candidate to become the world’s favourite protein. Its meteoric rise has reshaped farming landscapes and high streets to become a truly global industry that can suit almost any cuisine, religion or price point. Read the first in our series on Big Chicken.
Take a break from the news . . .
Can we learn anything from oligarchs? Two academics who study the modus operandi of this “strange species” say there are insights to be drawn from observing their behaviour, writes Jennifer Thompson.
