US stocks snapped their three-day winning streak on Friday as investors remained unnerved by the stand-off on trade between Washington and Beijing, while the renminbi touched a new low for 2019.

Metro Bank will stop hiring the architectural firm owned by its chairman’s wife after next year, bowing to pressure after several major proxy advisers and investors including the UK’s largest fund group criticised it over conflicts of interest.

The US has reached an agreement with Canada and Mexico to remove tariffs on steel and aluminium it imposed last year on national security grounds, people familiar with the matter said.

The US 10-year Treasury is eyeing its best week in nearly two months after concerns over trade drew investors back to haven assets over recent sessions.

US consumer sentiment jumped to its highest level in 15 years in May, but the gains could prove fleeting as Americans digest the latest escalation in the trade war between Washington and Beijing.

London’s marine insurance market, which covers the majority of the world’s ships, has upgraded a number of territorial waters in the Persian Gulf to high risk following ship attacks off Fujairah last weekend.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is acquiring supercomputer maker Cray in a deal valued at about $1.3bn as it looks to better compete against rival IBM for a slice of the fast-growing market for data analytics and management services.

The price of iron ore rose above $100 a tonne for the first time in five years on Friday after Vale, the world’s biggest producer of the steelmaking ingredient, warned there was a risk of another dam failure at one of its mines.

Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini has laid out his three-point plan to change the EU from within, ahead of a rally in Milan on Saturday of far-right and nationalist parties intended as a show of strength among Eurosceptic forces before this months’ European elections.

Copper prices were set for their fifth weekly loss as concerns deepened about the impact of a prolonged trade war between the US and China.

Softening conditions in the agricultural sector, brought about by the US-China trade war and a delayed planting season in much of North America, have made farmers more cautious about purchasing new equipment and prompted John Deere to cut its outlook for the 2019 financial year.

The IMF has called on Germany to lower taxes on poorer households and to invest more in the country’s infrastructure, as part of a broader effort to improve long-term competitiveness and help tackle economic imbalances.

Ministers have bowed to pressure from all sides of the political spectrum and agreed to start publishing a new measure of poverty in the UK with the aim of making it an officially recognised statistic.

Thomas Cook shares were branded worthless on Friday, triggering a collapse in the value of the UK’s oldest travel business and raising concerns among customers travelling this summer to its holiday resorts around the world.

The British pound headed towards this year’s low and suffered its worst week in more than a year as cross-party Brexit talks broke down.

Legal & General Investment Management, the UK’s largest fund group, has made the rare step of publicly announcing it will vote against the chairman of Metro Bank, the under-fire British lender.

China’s offshore renminbi has weakened to its lowest level since November on escalated trade tensions, in the worst week for emerging market currencies since the Turkish lira crisis last summer.

The two-party ruling majority of outgoing Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko collapsed on Friday, setting the stage for fresh coalition talks as political novice Volodymyr Zelensky, the president-elect, prepares to be sworn in on Monday.

Shares in rivals to food delivery group Deliveroo fell sharply on Friday after it was revealed that Amazon was backing the UK-based start-up.

Esure, the UK insurer behind Sheilas’ Wheels that was taken private last year in a £1.2bn deal, has poached David McMillan from an Australian rival after a more than yearlong search for a chief executive.

Staffline, a recruitment agency that supplies temporary workers to groups including Tesco and Marks and Spencer, lost more than half of its market value after claiming that Brexit was prompting companies to hire UK rather than foreign staff.

Taiwan has legalised same-sex marriage, making it the first Asian jurisdiction to allow the unions.

Rugby Australia has formally sacked Israel Folau, one of the nation’s most talented rugby players, after he posted homophobic remarks on social media.

Sony shares jumped on Friday after the company announced a $1.8bn share buyback and a video game streaming and AI partnership with Microsoft.