1. John Lewis made its loss in the first half of this year 

John Lewis reported a loss for the first half of this year. John Lewis makes a lot of money by selling expensive items to middle-class customers, but those customers aren’t as committed as energy and other necessities are becoming more expensive. Like-for-like sales at John Lewis department stores increased by only 3% in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year as a result. John Lewis’s sales fluctuate with the seasons, but this year’s drop more than tripled last year’s. To make up for this loss, John Lewis will almost certainly rely on holiday sales. 

2. Adobe’ $20 billion acquisition with Figma 

Adobe has acquired Figma, a software design startup. Figma benefited from the pandemic because its cloud-based design software allows hybrid workers to collaborate in real time, and it now has clients like Google and Netflix. Adobe has made some efforts to make web-based products like Photoshop Express more accessible, but experts aren’t convinced that it still has the market edge it once had, especially as competitors like Figma grow significantly. As a result, Adobe announced its acquisition of Figma, the largest takeover of a private software company in history. Adobe is hopeful on the market for Figma, which is expected to be worth nearly $17 billion by 2025. 

3. Uber is looking into a computer system hack 

Uber’s computer network has been hacked. Uber said it was investigating after several internal communications and engineering systems had been disrupted. Two Uber employees were told not to use the workplace messaging app Slack, according to the New York Times. They received a message shortly before the Slack system went down that said, “I announce I am a hacker and Uber has suffered a data breach.” The hacker later appeared to have gained access to other internal systems, posting an explicit photo on an employee information page. The hacker, who is 18 years old and has been practising cyber-security for several years, hacked the Uber systems because “they had weak security”. As recent Microsoft and Twitter breaches have demonstrated, young hackers with plenty of time on their hands and a spontaneous attitude can persuade even the most careful employees to make poor cyber-security decisions. 

4. UK interest rates highest since 2008 

The Bank of England increases interest rates to 2.25%. The Bank has raised interest rates for the seventh time in a row in an effort to cool rising prices. In addition to raising interest rates, the Bank of England predicted that the UK economy is already in recession. Economists believe the bill freeze will help keep headline inflation from rising much higher than the current rate of 9.9%. While the energy price guarantee would reduce the risk of high inflation leading to higher wage demands, policymakers also stated that because households would have more money to spend on discretionary items, interest rates could remain higher for longer. In the medium term, this could contribute to inflationary pressures.

By Fizah Jathol