Here are the business stories making the headlines across the country this morning.
HSBC joins UK banks in cutting mortgage rates
HSBC has joined two other major lenders in reducing mortgage rates following hints of a summer base rate cut by the Bank of England.
Barclays cut the cost of its fixed-rate home loans for new deals on Tuesday, following an earlier move by NatWest.
HSBC's cuts will come into effect on Wednesday, with brokers expecting more mortgage companies to follow suit.
However, these reductions are small in the wider context. Borrowers still face relatively high costs, with many paying significantly more in monthly repayments when current cheaper deals expire.
Nvidia shares rally to lift chip-maker’s valuation back over $3trn
After losing more than $500bn in value, shares in Nvidia rose nearly 7% in a rally that pushed the technology giant’s market capitalisation back above $3trn
The sell-off that started last week dethroned Nvidia as the world’s most valuable public company after the chip-maker briefly overtook Microsoft and Apple, hitting a record valuation of about $3.35trn.
The shares’ three-day decline was the worst run in the stock’s performance since the end of 2022, partially reversing stellar gains of more than 700 per cent made since the start of last year.
The shares have risen by more than 160% since January and by the close in New York on Tuesday they were $7.98, or 6.8%, higher at $126.09.
Royal Mail buyer to make offer for all staff shares
More than 100,000 former and current Royal Mail staff will this week be asked to sell their shares to a Czech billionaire.
On Wednesday morning, Daniel Kretinsky’s investment group, which wants to buy Royal Mail's parent company, will publish its formal offer online and send it by post.
Mr Kretinsky can then formally start lobbying investors to accept the offer.
He needs the approval of shareholders of three quarters of the parent company, but this task will be made easier because he already owns 27.5% of it.
Morrisons’ turnaround dented by slowing sales growth
Britain’s fifth-largest supermarket, Wm Morrison, has reported a slowdown in sales growth amid stiff competition from rivals.
Like-for-like sales at the supermarket were up 4.1% in the second quarter, contributing to total sales growth of 3.7% to £3.8bn. However, it marks a deceleration compared with previous quarters. Sales rose 4.6% in the previous three months.
The slowdown is a setback to the private equity-owned supermarket, which had started to show signs of recovery under Rami Baitiéh, its new chief executive.
The grocer has lagged behind competitors since it was bought by Clayton Dubilier & Rice, the American private equity group, in 2021 in a deal that added £6.6bn of debt to its balance sheet.