Good morning. Today we're talking about uncompetitive petrol prices, disappointing drug trials and record Tesla sales.

Big Stories

Consumer petrol pain

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has found that weak competition in the UK fuel market led to higher prices for drivers last year. The watchdog said that supermarket margins on fuel had increased by 6p per litre between 2019 and 2022, with Morrisons and Asda seeing their targeted margins more than double. The CMA said that this meant drivers using supermarkets had been faced with additional costs of "around £900m". It has called for a number of measures to be introduced to improve competition in the market, including a fuel finder scheme to help drivers find better live prices online.

Pharma giant’s drug blow

Yesterday AstraZeneca's share price dropped by 8% after the company published disappointing results from its latest clinical trial of a new lung cancer drug. Although the treatment did slow progression of the disease it did not improve overall survival. Some analysts have pinned $10bn to $18bn sales estimates on the new drug and were hoping the company would declare the results “clinically meaningful”. AstraZeneca said clinical significance was a “subjective assessment” and further analysis was required to interpret the results. The share price decline wiped off nearly £14bn from the market value of the British pharmaceutical giant which has faced growing investor concern over its pipeline of new drugs.

Tesla hits record

Tesla delivered a record 466,140 cars worldwide in the past three months, a 83% jump on the year before and ahead of analyst expectations. The results demonstrated that CEO Elon Musk’s pledge to sharply increase sales with aggressive price cuts and incentives has had its desired effect. But some analysts have warned the strategy could dent Tesla's profit margins, while others have cautioned that several deals to let rivals use Tesla's charging stations risked eroding its market share.

Elsewhere...

Up for sale: The London free newspaper City AM has put itself up for sale, as print outlets continue to struggle with the collapse of the advertising market and the increasing cost of paper.

Raising interest: MPs have written to the UK’s biggest banks calling for higher savings rates for consumers.

New social media: The Twitter competitor from Meta, Instagram Threads, is expected to launch this week.

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£4.6bn

How much UK households withdrew from their savings in May to weather the cost of living crisis - the fastest rate ever recorded.

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