UK stocks muted as inflation data dims interest rate cut bets
The blue-chip FTSE 100 (.FTSE), opens new tab was up 0.2% as of 1035 GMT, while the midcap FTSE 250 index (.FTMC), opens new tab was flat.
Britain's annual rate of consumer price inflation unexpectedly rose to its highest in over a year at 3.6% in June, as higher costs of motor fuel, transport and food pushed up prices.
"There is a real threat of stagflation as the rate of inflation moves higher and the economy is stuck in the mud. It puts the Bank of England in a tricky situation with regards to monetary policy decisions," said Dan Coatsworth, investment analyst at AJ Bell.
The central bank is largely expected to cut interest rates by a quarter-point in August after recent economic data fuelled concerns of weaker domestic growth and labour market, but the chances of such a move dimmed after Wednesday's inflation data.
The BoE will closely watch the employment and wages figures due on Thursday.
Meanwhile, UK finance minister Rachel Reeves on Tuesday announced measures to boost the finance sector, including reforming requirements for banks to separate retail and investment banking activities, easing regulations and a plan to get more savers investing in stocks.
In corporate updates, AstraZeneca (AZN.L), opens new tab fell 1.1% after the drugmaker's experimental therapy, anselamimab, failed to meet the main goal of a late-stage study for the treatment of AL amyloidosis, a rare condition that causes a buildup of protein deposits in the body.
Rio Tinto (RIO.L), opens new tab rose 1.3% after the mining giant reported its strongest second-quarter iron ore production since 2018, a day after promoting its iron ore chief Simon Trott to CEO.
Antofagasta (ANTO.L), opens new tab edged up 0.5% after the Chilean miner said its copper production rose 11% in the first half of 2025, on improved output from its two concentrators.
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The Independent
28 minutes ago
- The Independent
Reeves ‘eyes £5bn windfall from sale of seized cryptocurrency'
Rachel Reeves is eyeing up a £5bn pre-Budget windfall as the government considers selling off seized cryptocurrency to plug a hole in the public finances. The Home Office is reportedly working with police forces to offload at least £5bn worth of Bitcoin and other currencies taken from criminals. It is planning to develop a storage system for the currencies to handle their sale, it has emerged, as concerns about Labour's spending plans mount ahead of the autumn Budget. Home Office plans for a 'crypto storage and realisation framework' would allow law enforcement to securely store frozen digital currencies and sell them, The Sunday Telegraph reported. Ms Reeves has been left with a gap of at least £5bn to fill when she sets out the government's spending plans this autumn, with the government's chaotic U-turn on planned benefit cuts raising the likelihood of tax hikes. The chancellor and Sir Keir Starmer have left the door open to a wealth tax to cover the shortfall. As well as the £5bn black hole left by the welfare climbdown, the impact of sluggish economic growth and Donald Trump 's trade war could leave the Treasury scrambling to find as much as £20bn in tax hikes or spending cuts elsewhere. It is not known how much cryptocurrency law enforcement agencies currently have, but one 2018 raid saw 61,000 Bitcoin seized from a Chinese Ponzi scheme. The value of Bitcoin has surged since Mr Trump's return to the White House, meaning the haul could be worth more than £5.4bn. Responding to the suggestion Ms Reeves could sell the reserves, Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf said: 'This would be a terrible decision. The UK should be implementing Reform's Crypto Bill and increasing its Bitcoin reserves. 'Selling now will go down as a far worse decision than Gordon Brown's fire sale of our gold. 'The Westminster class are dinosaurs who don't get the future.' But Aidan Larkin, the chief executive of seizure company Asset Reality, told The Sunday Telegraph: 'There is oil under our feet in terms of digital assets, from an illicit perspective, that could have hundreds of millions of pounds coming back into the UK each year.' Bitcoin investors have been spurred on by Mr Trump, who has lent his support to the market both by promising new legislation and regulatory changes, but also even launching his own digital currencies. The leading cryptocurrency reached $120,000, marking both an all-time high and an important landmark for those who believe that bitcoin is undervalued.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
The quiet, matter of fact takeover of women holding senior economist roles
Rachel Reeves is rightly proud of being the first woman chancellor of the exchequer, but she is far from alone: the commanding heights of economic policymaking in the UK are becoming much less male. At a Westminster thinktank event last week about whether Labour is still a 'mission-led government', one of the most striking things was not the panel's answer, which you can probably guess, but the fact that it was made up of three women, and one token man. The Institute for Government's director, Hannah White, was joined by its chief economist, Gemma Tetlow, and the no-nonsense new director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Helen Miller – as well as the FT's Stephen Bush. Elsewhere, the Resolution Foundation is now run by Ruth Curtice, a former Treasury economist. Rain Newton-Smith, another economist, has the task of repairing the CBI's scandal-rocked reputation as its director general. Two of the four deputy governors of the Bank of England are women, too – as are the leaders of a string of powerful trades unions. This female takeover has been a quiet and matter of fact one – but it marks a significant change, very noticeable upon returning to covering the field, after a few years away. It has not yet been reflected in the gender balance of students picking economics at GCSE, A-level or as a degree, unfortunately. Research commissioned by the Bank of England showed earlier this year that economics classes at all levels remain about 70% male. But if anything, that makes it all the more striking that many of the most authoritative voices we will hear, in the run-up to Reeves's autumn budget, will be female. Aside from straightforward fairness, there are at least three potential benefits of this feminisation of the economic debate. The first, which Reeves herself has talked about directly, is the simple power of example: giving girls and young women the perception they could do jobs such as these. And while it must have been shattering, shedding a few tears at the dispatch box was a powerful part of that: many women of every age will have identified with her. Women just do cry more than men (a YouGov poll in 2015 found that 45% of women had cried at least once a month in the past year; for men, it was 11%). This has zero bearing on their ability to do their job – and if anything, may point to sincerity, rather than insouciance. Whatever you think of their policies, Theresa May's tears as she resigned, surely reflected better on her character than David Cameron's jaunty little hum. A second potential benefit of having women at the top of economic policymaking should be better decision-making. Jill Rutter, a former Treasury official and now senior research fellow at thinktank UK in a Changing Europe, recalls that back in the 1980s, 'there were virtually no women around the table making tax policy decisions, and it was very interesting, because almost all the senior people there had non-working wives'. She recalls being stared at if, as the junior official present, she piped up to ask how a particular policy might go down with women. Four decades later, Boris Johnson's bloke-heavy government was apparently capable of similar myopia. When senior Cabinet Office official Helen MacNamara testified at the Covid Inquiry, she argued that senior women's voices were all but absent from decision-making in the pandemic. 'Decisions were being taken where the impact on women was either lost or ignored,' she said in her written evidence. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion MacNamara pointed to a lack of consideration about the demands that school closures would place on families; the potential impact of lockdown on domestic violence victims; and the rules around pregnancy and birth. By contrast, she said, time was found to discuss the implications for, 'hunting, shooting and fishing'. Across today's economic landscape, there are plenty of pressing issues women may feel particularly moved to pursue – not least the gender pay gap (13%), which Reeves has pledged to narrow, and its less-noticed sister, the gender pensions gap (standing at a shocking 35% for private pension savings), which the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, is expected to highlight in a speech on Monday. The third and more speculative potential upside of having more female economic policymakers, is a shift in the tone of debate. Not all women are moderate, or reasonable, or ground their arguments in the everyday – Liz Truss is certainly a counterexample – but I would gently suggest that on average, they tend to be a bit less prone to bluster, bravado, and what the kids call 'main character syndrome'. That was why it was depressing last week to see Reeves at the Mansion House, describing regulation as the 'boot on the neck' of British enterprise, in danger of 'choking off' innovation. No doubt the violent language was aimed at grabbing headlines (which it did) and communicating a clear message to her City audience. But it was jarring to read such a brute phrase in a public speech by the UK's most powerful woman. There is no shortage of tedious macho language around Keir Starmer – with anonymous briefers proudly telling columnists the prime minister's politics are 'hard Labour', and accusing MPs of 'knobheadery'. Perhaps as her crunch autumn budget approaches, Reeves can help the government to find a different, more relatable vocabulary. Judging by the comments of that mainly-female panel about Labour's first year in power last week, the debate in the coming months will be every bit as robust as ever. But it will be fascinating to see if it can be conducted in a different, calmer way: and perhaps more closely anchored to what MacNamara argued was missing from that shameful Johnson period: people, and families, and how people actually live their lives.
Times
3 hours ago
- Times
Business is an easy target for tax. Ministers should resist
T ucked away in a devolution bill this month was a provision that has unsettled the commercial property industry. The deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, set out to ban upward-only rent reviews, a mainstay of property valuations for decades, saying the change would 'make it easier for small businesses and community groups to compete'. Even those who supported it pointed out that high-street retailers and leisure operators face far bigger challenges, many imposed by the government. The sectors, which tend to employ low-paid and part-time workers, have shouldered a disproportionate amount of the £25 billion extra national insurance burden announced in October's budget. Analysis of HM Revenue & Customs figures last week found that payrolled employment in the hospitality industry fell by 83,800 jobs in the nine months after the budget, while employment in retail fell by 45,600. April's steep rise in the minimum wage has also had a big impact. Business rates are another factor. Before the election, Rachel Reeves promised to reform the deeply unpopular tax on property occupancy before replacing it altogether. In fact, October brought tinkering that will result in retail and hospitality tenants paying more by 2026. • Business rates hike would drive up food prices, chancellor told There was a dab of jam tomorrow, in that after that point businesses in those sectors will pay less for small properties. But that will be funded through higher charges on occupants of properties valued at more than £500,000. The property agency Gerald Eve has estimated that more than 16,000 buildings will be hit. They will include 1,800 supermarkets, 860 department stores and 483 warehouses but also hospitals, schools and universities. Our deputy political editor, Harry Yorke, reports today that the retail industry is warning this added strain on big shops could force them to push up food and clothing prices, stoking inflation. Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, says retailers 'are doing everything they can to shield customers from … mounting pressures, but there is only so much they can absorb'. The truth is that retail and hospitality are easy to tax because they have big payrolls and are rooted in the UK. That does not make it right. They have already had to grapple with the shift towards online shopping. They have swallowed plenty of tax medicine. These companies employ the 'working people' Labour wants to protect. Squeezing them may be fiscally expedient but it is shortsighted. Labour's failure to get means-testing of winter fuel payments and cuts to welfare past its backbenchers leaves Reeves with a hole to fill this autumn. The temptation will be to come back for more. The chancellor should be mindful of the pain high-employment sectors have suffered before she raises taxes further. She should also get on with reforming business rates.
