benchmark nikkei is trading at almost 1% down. still on central banks — let's turn to the fed which has delivered its third rate cut for the year. despite that — the s&p 500 and the nasdaq tumbled around 3% as you can see here. the dow slipped over a thousand points. this was because the fed gave a cautious outlook for 2025. former fed governor randy kroszner explained to me that wall street's knee—jerk reaction is not a cause for concern. i was a bit surprised because they made a very clear that they would cut, that they were concerned that inflation is not coming down as rapidly as they would like, the economy is still strong and robust so that suggests that they were going to revise the number of cuts that they had forecast. less than the september forecast, they would do a full full four quarter point cuts, now they said they will do two of those. it doesn't surprise me

at all given what they said, i'm surprised the market said, gosh, what are they talking about? even though i think that's what they've been saying in the last few weeks. how are you weighing up the inflation potentials for next year, especially with the trump presidency and the tariffs that he flagged? so i think that you will see a lot of robust economic activity, you will see an extension of the tax reforms and tax cuts that the president—elect trump put in when he was president. and perhaps even further cuts for giving more incentives for investment. the tariffs will move prices up on a 1—off basis, they will be an ongoing inflation, the price level up a bit will move but i think the fed will look through that most likely but i think the fed is seeing most likely a more robust economy, more investment, more optimism and so, reasonably, they are saying well, we should slow down the number of cuts we should do. talking about the relationship

between the fed and president—elect trump, there has been some feisty words exchanged between the chair jerome powell and trump, there was a thought at one point that trump may try and remove him, how do you see this shaping up? i think president—elect trump has said he doesn't plan to remove jerome powell. and jerome made it clear that if he did try, he wasn't going. and now they seem to be on the same page. they did cut interest rates and president trump — president—elect trump is a low interest—rate guy and is consistent with whether the president wants the fed to go but he will get as much next year as i think he might like but my hunch is that the economy was doing reasonably well and the economy is doing well relative to the rest of the world, he probably won't focus on the fed too much. i wanted to ask you, christmas is coming, is the us consumer out spending, what do we know about that?

so, the consumer is optimistic because retail sales have been stronger than had been expected. the consumer does not have as much savings as they once had because of the all government programmes putting money into people's pockets. they've been putting down over time so the savings rate is around 4%—4.5%. that's not especially high but it's not terribly low but there seems to be a lot of optimism and the consumer keeps consuming and a lot of optimism both for tech investments like ai as well as because the prospects for deregulation and so i think that will be really helping to maintain demand. both on investment side and consumer side. some other stories. thousands of amazon workers are set to walk out on strike on thursday. the teamsters union, which represents nearly 10,000 workers, said the industrial action is in response to amazon's refusal to recognise the union and negotiate with them on labour contracts. crucially, the strikes are occurring during the christmas season —

one of amazon's busiest periods of the year. it could be a bumpy year for barclays with bonuses to increase by 20% for staff working in debt and equity markets. barclays says working in debt and equity markets. ba rclays says full decisions are being made but higher pay—outs are likely after the bank enjoyed a strong year. ford is appointing a new quality chief — a person in charge of catching defects on vehicles before they are sold to customers. that's been a major issue for the us automaker this year after a government investigation found that it failed to recall vehicles with defective rear—view cameras in a timely manner. the new quality chief will be appointed early in the new year. you might remember online investing platform robinhood — a key player in the meme stock frenzy we saw back in 2021. these days, the online trading platform has expanded into cryptocurrencies and wealth management. the bbc�*s ritika gupta sat down with the company's chief executive vlad tenev,

and asked him what an incoming trump administration will mean for businesses like his. we have worked to diversify the business and make sure that we are a strong, growing company across all market environments regardless of whether it is a democratic administration or republican, regardless of its high interest rates or low. but, yes, sometimes, there are things that help the business and i think having a clear regulatory framework behind crypto where we are one of the leaders in the us is going to be very helpful. notjust for us as a business but for the industry, which has been under relentless assault from the current administration. morgan sally has said that you are one of the biggest winners from the trump election win. just thinking about who donald trump is bringing into his administration, the likes of the department of government efficiency led by elon musk, and how do

you see that? i think it's strong for our business. generally speaking, efficiency and making the government run more smoothly, i'm a huge believer in that and i think that it could not only save costs and the costs have been increasing tremendously but it's notjust the cost, it's reducing the friction to the us being the market leader in new innovative industries. crypto, we mention, but also ai. and ultimately, it will be the combination of cutting costs but also putting in place policies that make america the best place to do business, which ultimately will drive gdp growth, and i think we can do both in this country. i don't think we have to pick one or the other. robinhood's vlad tenev speaking there. 2024 was quite a year for concert fans, and there was no bigger event that taylor swift's eras tour. from march last year up until last week in vancouver,

with some breaks in—between, the pop star performed 150 shows in the us, europe, asia and canada. all that hard work raked in $2 billion in ticket sales, according to investopedia. tickets for taylor swift's concerts went quicker than coldplay�*s tour around the same time. american university economics professor kara reynolds explains what's behind the success of the swift tour. so, it's twice as big as any other tour, she famously was the first billion—dollar tour. you mentioned has since surpassed $2 billion, 150 shows, but also it was $14 million per show so she is a hard worker, she went everywhere but also, she was getting a lot of money per seat as well. you teach a swiftonomics class in the university, what are the economics at work behind taylor swift? yes, so, we talk a lot about the music — economics of the music industry, one thing that's happened in the music industry more

generally is as the cost of listening of music and streaming music has come down, the cost of going to live music has gone up, the artists are turning to touring to make all their revenue so that's part of what's going on but the other part is really about market power. we spend a lot of time talking about the market power of taylor swift and how she is able to use that to charge higher prices for her tickets but also to negotiate some of the big music players like spotify and we also talk about the market power on the ticket distribution sales, infamously ticketmaster, who is the us distributor of tickets, is under investigation by the department ofjustice now for anti—trust violation and anti—competitive behaviour that is also pushing up the price of tickets. and so, all this market power is increasing prices for consumers. lots of topics to discuss. you mention spotify, does this suggest that the model

for making money as a musician has changed with the idea of labels and selling music labels and things have changed and people instead are going towards concerts and gigs? i think that's right, in some ways, the album has become almost an aside, a way to drum up business for the tour and that's where you're going to make all of your money. is she a unique entity or could we see the likes of the oasis tour replicating some of the success? so, coldplay also hit $1 billion this year so because ticket prices are higher, we will see more big tours and i'm sure that a lot of artists are going to take some pages out of her playbook, she ran that tour so well. but in some sense, she is very singular in terms of how her artists and fans are. she also had the highest grossing concert film this year, she had the fastest selling book in 2024 so it will be a hard act to follow up. i don't know that anyone

will quite reach her level anytime soon. no bad blood between taylor swift and her bank account. and that's it for this edition of business today. thanks for watching. stay with bbc news.

it's lucy with the catch up. tonight: a teenagerjailed for dangerous driving, the latest on the southport stabbings, and plenty of positive news too. first tonight, a 19—year—old who was filmed inhaling laughing gas while driving just before a high—speed crash has been jailed for nine years after pleading guilty to causing the death of his three friends by dangerous driving. thomasjohnson was driving up to 100 mph before his car hit a tree in 0xfordshire. he was injured, and the passengers, ethan goddard and daniel hancock, who were 18, and elliot pullen, who was 17, were killed. in a split second, it could be your reality. so don't, don't drive dangerously and don't consume drugs while driving because it's never worth it for this outcome. a lot of you will remember the stabbings that happened in southport in july.

elsie dot stancombe, alice dasilva aguiar and bebe king were at a dance class when they were killed. today, the man suspected of stabbing them, axel rudakuban, pleaded not guilty to murder and to attempting murder ten other people. he refused to speak when asked to confirm his name and enter his pleas. and we know the news can feel heavy so we are reliving 100 of the year's most positive stories. it was really hard to pickjust one, but of course we chose ten seconds of a cute animal story. winston's wheels is a charity that makes wheelchairs for dogs. the founder says seeing the beautiful dogs adapting and proving that disability does not hold you back is rewarding. and you can see loads more of those stories on the bbc news app — just scan this code. and that's it from us. have a good one.

hello there and welcome along to sportsday. i'm gavin ramjaun. could rashford wave goodbye to old trafford? his new head coach wants him to stay. we'll explore what could be next for the united forward. the holders progress, but liverpool are given a scare against strugglers southampton in the league cup quarter finals. late drama for arsenal in the women's champions league as they beat bayern to win the group. and we'll show you how tyson fury kept fight fans guessing ahead of his rematch with 0lyksandr usyk. hello there and welcome along to the programme.

we'll bring you up to speed on a busy evening on the efl cup and the women's champions league in a moment. but first to the man who very recently was the golden boy at old trafford and very much one of the most in—demand forwards in the world. marcus rashford has been at manchester united since he was a child. he could now be on the verge of leaving the club — but his coach wants him to stay. joe lynskey reports. the next train to arrive on platform one... as manchester united caught the train to london, one player wasn't there. they had to face spurs on thursday with marcus rashford, for now, missing. absent from the platform with a career now at a junction. he still has four years left on his contract but he's told his club it's time to leave. marcus rashford said this in an interview with henry winter.

this is a player whose whole career has been with