FTSE 100 touches above 9,000 for the first time
The FTSE 100 Index briefly rose above the record high, hitting 9,016.98 at one stage in morning trading on Tuesday, having recorded a fresh closing high on Monday just shy of the milestone.
The top tier later eased back to stand 3.34 points lower at 8994.72 by mid-morning.
Markets across Europe lifted tentatively with the Dax in Germany and France's Cac 40 up 0.3% and 0.2% respectively.
Investors were optimistic that a deal can still be reached between the US and EU, despite the latest tariff threats from US President Donald Trump.
Mr Trump said on Saturday that major trading partners Mexico and the EU would face a 30% tariff starting next month, piling on the pressure for deals to be struck.
Some stocks were struggling on the FTSE despite the record being reached, with Barratt Redrow plunging to the bottom of the top tier, shedding 7% after a disappointing update, which also dragged rival housebuilders Persimmon and Berkeley Group lower.
Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor, said a speech by Chancellor Rachel Reeves later will also be in sharp focus.
She said: 'UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares to deliver her closely watched Mansion House speech tonight when she is anticipated to outline a series of financial reforms including measures to improve mortgage access.'
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Times
an hour ago
- Times
Zanzibar spice farms get bitter taste of EU regulations
Spice plants crowded in lush rows are fertilised with coconut husks and manure from local chicken and cows, fed by rainfall in the natural rhythms of the Indian Ocean. If precious clove trees show signs of suffering from bugs or disease, they are treated with lemongrass or quinine. Spices are dried on woven mats, heated by the sun. These techniques, free of mechanical or industrial intervention, have been unchanged across Zanzibar since Omani ruler Seyyid Said bin Sultan introduced cloves to the archipelago two centuries ago. The European Union, however, has deemed these farms not to be organic enough, whatever the average health-conscious consumer and socially-minded buyer may think. A drastic tightening of EU certification rules has dashed the hopes of Zanzibar's struggling spice farmers and is already cutting into livelihoods. 'It's one of the biggest problems,' Ali Nassor Mohamedi, 61, who tends to the village-owned spice farm in Kizimbani, said. 'Our methods are organic by nature, but we can't label spices as organic when we export, and it's one reason prices are low.' Zanzibar's spice farmers have faced troubles for decades, starting with nationalisation in the 1970s under which the islands quickly lost their place to Indonesia as the world's largest source of cloves. Climate change has recently become a worry, with unpredictable weather patterns disrupting the usual rainy seasons. Though cloves remain Zanzibar's largest export, the climate, alongside ageing trees and crop diseases, has pushed down production. But the biggest problems facing farmers like Mohamedi are low prices and global competition. Today, Asia-Pacific consumes the most spices — more than 40 per cent of global production — but those arefound locally in the likes of Indonesia, India and Vietnam. Europe is Zanzibar's critical market, with high profit margins — especially from consumers willing to pay a premium for organic spices. Tanzania exported €173 million in spices as well as coffee, tea, and cocoa to the EU last year. Demanding EU regulation around organic imports has long been tricky for Zanzibar's farmers, but not impossible. There is only one EU organic-certified spice exporter in Zanzibar, a Tanzanian-Swiss social enterprise called Zanj Spice that has grown to represent 512 smallholder farmers since its 2012 founding. The company helps farmers gain EU organic certification and remain compliant, guaranteeing purchases and selling the spices on to Europe. This is already costly, according to Elizabeth Mwangi, the company's operations manager. To certify a single farm costs Zanj Spice $1,000 per year for a three-year conversion period, and the group pays an additional €12,000 annually to keep the farms under its umbrella in compliance through external audits. The financial advantages of selling into the certified organic EU market are stark. Zanj Spice can buy from farmers at around 1.8 times the price of local spice traders who sell into the non-organic market. The EU is not unaware of challenges in Zanzibar, having signed two agreements worth €14 million last December on 'inclusive growth and sustainable development' targeting the region. However, 'EU regulation 2018/848 has changed a lot of things fundamentally,' Mwangi said, referring to rules that went into effect this year for third countries importing into the bloc. 'The law now requires a lot of things that the Zanzibari farmer cannot change. Many new farms will not be certified, and existing certified farms will be sanctioned.' At the heart of the new regime are 'zero residue' rules that ban any contaminants — almost impossible to avoid in Zanzibar, Mwangi said. A farmer washing their hands with soap and later touching spices is detectable contamination, as is the drying of spices in proximity to an open window through which woodsmoke could drift. The rules also require a type of crop rotation that Zanzibar's farms are incapable of and, Mwangi added, was redundant given their use of sustainable agroforestry practices. Zanj Spice has had to sanction 13 of its associated smallholdings for breach of the new rules, halting purchases from those farmers and hitting livelihoods. 'When clients visit our farmers, they fall in love with what they're doing. The consumer is happy with the spices, but now the regulation is quite complex,' Mwangi said. 'It's so frustrating.' The community in Kizimbani, like many others, has increased its focus on tours for holidaymakers interested in the history and practices of spice cultivation. It reduces the traditional trade that has defined the 'spice islands' to an attraction, and makes farmers vulnerable to cyclical travel trends. 'In the last 10 years we have been relying more on tourists. In low season people go hungry,' Mohamedi said. 'Without spice there is no life in Zanzibar.'
Telegraph
3 hours ago
- Telegraph
Concrete sales plunge to 62-year low as hopes for Labour's building boom fade
Demand for concrete has fallen to its lowest level since 1963 in a serious blow to Labour's hopes of building more houses. Sales of ready-mixed concrete fell by 11.5pc in the three months to June against the previous three months, according to data from the Mineral Products Association (MPA), which represents producers. The product is widely-used in housebuilding to lay foundations, and provide the base for flooring and driveways. The figures suggest that Labour will miss its target of building 1.5m new homes by the end of this Parliament 'by a significant margin', the MPA said. Concrete sales have fallen by a third in 10 years, and more than halved over the last 20 years. The drop means that annual sales have not been this low since 1963 – before the nationwide housing and infrastructure building boom that transformed Britain. The MPA said that sales of other building materials, such as mortar and sand, also fell, with demand for most products at 'historically low levels'.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
White House officials rush to defend Trump after shaky economic week
Donald Trump administration officials fanned out on Sunday's US political shows to defend the president's policies after a bruising week of poor economic, trade and employment numbers that culminated with the firing of labor statistics chief Erika McEntarfer. US trade representative Jamieson Greer said Trump has 'real concerns' about the jobs numbers that extend beyond Friday's report that showed the national economy added 73,000 jobs in July, far below expectations. Job growth numbers were revised down by 285,000 for the two previous months as well. On CBS News's Face the Nation, Greer defended Trump's decision to fire McEntarfer, a respected statistician, saying: 'You want to be able to have somewhat reliable numbers. There are always revisions, but sometimes you see these revisions go in really extreme ways.' He added: 'The president is the president. He can choose who works in the executive branch.' But William Beach, who served as Trump's commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in his first presidency, warned that McEntarfer's dismissal would undermine confidence in the quality of US economic data. The BLS gave no reason for the revised data but noted that 'monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors'. 'This is damaging,' Beach said on Sunday on CNN's State of the Union. 'I don't know that there's any grounds at all for this firing. 'And it really hurts the statistical system. It undermines credibility in BLS.' McEntarfer on Friday published a statement on social media reacting to her dismissal, calling it the 'honor my life' to have served as BLS commissioner. She said the BLS employs 'many dedicated civil servants tasked with measuring a vast and dynamic economy'. 'It is vital and important work, and I thank them for their service to this nation,' McEntarfer's statement on the Bluesky platform said. Uproar over McEntarfer's firing has come as a series of new tariff rates are due to come into effect this month. While the president has predicted a golden age for the US economy, many economists warn that higher import tariffs could ultimately weaken American economic activity. On CBS, Greer said that Trump's tariff rates are 'pretty much set' and unlikely to be re-negotiated before they come into effect. The first six months of Trump's second terms have been characterized by a seesawing of tariff rate announcements that earned the president the moniker on Wall Street of Taco – 'Trump always chickens out'. But last week he issued an executive order outlining tariff modifications for dozens of countries after he had twice delayed implementation. Yet Greer also said many of the tariff rates announced 'are set rates pursuant to deals'. 'Some of these deals are announced, some are not, others depend on the level of the trade deficit or surplus we may have with the country,' he said. On NBC's Meet the Press, the national economic council (NEC) director, Kevin Hassett, said modified US tariff rates were now 'more or less locked in, although there will have to be some dancing around the edges about exactly what we mean when we do this or that'. Asked if tariff rates could change again, he said, 'I would rule it out because these are the final deals.' On Fox News Sunday, Hassett said he also supported McEntarfer's dismissal. 'I think what we need is a fresh set of eyes at the BLS, somebody who can clean this thing up,' he remarked. But former treasury secretary Larry Summers told ABC's This Week that McEntarfer's firing was 'way beyond anything that Richard Nixon ever did', alluding to the late former president who resigned in 1974 over the Watergate scandal. Summers said Trump's claim that the poor job numbers were 'phony' and designed to make him look bad 'is a preposterous charge'. 'These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals,' Summers said. 'There's no conceivable way that the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number. The numbers are in line with what we're seeing from all kinds of private sector sources.' Summers placed McEntarfer's firing, Trump's pressure on Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, to lower interest rates, and the strong-arm tactics that the administration has aimed at universities, law firms and media institutions in the same bucket. 'This is the stuff of democracies giving way to authoritarianism,' Summers said. 'Firing statisticians goes with threatening the heads of newspapers. 'It goes with launching assaults on universities. It goes with launching assaults on law firms that defend clients that the elected boss finds uncongenial. This is really scary stuff.'
