Back in March, an investment fund called Archegos Capital Management collapsed after building up vast derivatives bets on several stocks, precipitating billions of dollars in losses for its lenders. The incident raised a troubling question about the country’s financial early-warning system: How could regulators have remained unaware of such a large concentration of risk until it was too late? ...

The walls are closing in on Boris Johnson. The UK prime minister’s defiant posture in the House of Commons rallied loyalists but failed to placate new and old enemies within his party, who are calling on him to quit over lockdown-defying gatherings held at 10 Downing Street during the pandemic. Conservative members of Parliament can trigger a leadership contest with ...

  Bloomberg UK retail sales plummeted in December as the spread of the Omicron variant kept shoppers at home. The volume of goods sold in stores and online fell 3.7% from November, the biggest drop since January 2021’s lockdown, the Office for National Statistics said Friday. Economists had expected a decrease of 0.6%. Sales excluding auto fuel declined 3.6%. The ...