The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite have opened higher today after cooler-than-expected producer price inflation data boosted bets on a US interest rate next week.
Adding to gains were strong results from Oracle, which saw its shares jump 39 per cent.
Analysts said the fall in producer prices was bullish for shares. The S&P 500 rose 0.5 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.47 per cent. The Dow Jones dipped 0.1 per cent.
As Wall Street opened, the FTSE 100 had lost earlier gains to trade down 4 points, or 0.06 per cent, at 9,235.31. A weaker dollar lifted the pound to $1.3552, up 0.2 per cent.
Anglo American was the biggest riser in the index, up 2.7 per cent after its mega-merger with Canada’s Teck Resources to create the fifth largest copper producer. AB Foods remained the biggest faller, down 13.5 per cent, after it warned of a slowdown in sales at Primark and continued weakness at its sugar business.
Surprise fall in US producer prices
US wholesale prices unexpectedly fell in August for the first time in four months, pulled down by a fall in the costs of services.
The producer price index (PPI) decreased 0.1 per cent from a month earlier after a downwardly revised 0.7 per cent rise in July, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed. Economists forecast the PPI would advance 0.3 per cent.
Services prices fell 0.2 per cent after rebounding 0.7 per cent in July, suggesting companies are wary of passing on the cost of tariffs by raising prices at a time of slowing consumer spending and confidence. It would mean companies are absorbing the cost for now.
However, core PPI rose 0.3 per cent with annual growth at a five-month high of 2.8 per cent. The rise in core PPI keeps rate cut hopes alive. There is a 90 per cent probability that the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by a quarter-point in its meeting next Wednesday, according to the CME Fedwatch tool.
We’re not selling Ben and Jerry’s, says Magnum boss
Ben Cohen, left, and Jerry Greenfield founded the ice cream company and sold it to Unilever 25 years ago
MARISOL DIAZ-GORDON/NEWSDAY RM VIA GETTY IMAGES
Unilever’s ice-cream division, which is being spun off from the consumer goods company, has dismissed talk of selling Ben & Jerry’s.
Ben & Jerry’s co-founders seized the spotlight at Tuesday’s investor day before the demerged company’s listing in mid-November to renew their call for its own spin-off.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield sold their company to Unilever for $326 million in 2000. The relationship has soured due to the ice cream brand’s stances on social and political issues.
Peter ter Kulve, chief executive of the Magnum Ice Cream Company, which besides Ben & Jerry’s includes brands such as Magnum, Wall’s and Cornetto, said: “I have not been privy to any discussion between Unilever and Ben & Jerry. Ben & Jerry’s is not for sale.”
Lord King: Rich countries are all in the same mess
Lord King of Lothbury, who led the Bank of England during the 2008 financial crisis, has warned that rich countries are “all in the same mess rather than just the UK” as a consequence of the ubiquitous rise in long-term government borrowing costs and public debt.
The former Bank governor told members of the House of Lords financial services regulation committee that global interest rates would climb even higher if there were another economic shock and governments responded with generous support packages.
“I think if there were to be another crisis, governments would cope with it, but it would come at a cost, with a much larger rise in the ratio of debt to GDP, and we would see interest rates go up to offset that. I think now we’re all in a much more difficult position,” he said.
“Some people have drawn comfort from the fact that the recent rise in long-term interest rates has been true across the G7, and it has. But that simply means we’re all in the same mess rather than just the UK.”
Earlier this month, the rate on the UK 30-year government bond hit its highest level in nearly three decades. Rates on French, German and American equivalent bonds have also increased steeply since the start of the year.
Former Travis Perkins boss to chair C4
Geoff Cooper previously ran Travis Perkins
ANDRE CAMARA FOR THE TIMES
The former boss of Travis Perkins has been appointed to lead the board of Channel 4 as the search continues for a permanent chief executive.
Geoff Cooper will join the broadcaster as chairman at the start of next month, succeeding Dawn Airey, who has been filling the role on an interim basis since April.
Cooper, 71, is currently chairman of AO World, the online electricals retailer, and was chief executive of Travis Perkins for eight years until 2013.
Lisa Nandy, culture secretary, who approved the appointment said: “Channel 4 is a treasured national institution with a track record of creating cutting-edge television which reflects Britain in all its diversity. I look forward to seeing Geoff Cooper help Channel 4 continue to provide top-quality programmes and adapt to the changing media landscape.”
The search for a permanent chief executive continues after Alex Mahon stepped down this summer.
JLR cyberattack: ‘Some data has been affected’
Jaguar Land Rover halted car production after the cyberattack
AKOS STILLER/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
Jaguar Land Rover believes that “some data has been affected” as a result of a cyberattack that has led to a halt in car production.
The carmaker, owned by India’s Tata Motors, gave no further details. It has previously said there was “no evidence” that data had been stolen.
JLR shut down its systems on August 31 after discovering issues affecting its global operations. Factory workers are currently on standby, with production still paused.
A JLR spokesman said: “As a result of our ongoing investigation, we now believe that some data has been affected and we are informing the relevant regulators. Our forensic investigation continues at pace and we will contact anyone as appropriate if we find that their data has been impacted.
“We are very sorry for the continued disruption this incident is causing and we will continue to update as the investigation progresses.”
DIY helps lift Wickes’ profits
Wickes reports a growth in trade customers
ALAMY
The home improvement retailer has reported a 5.7 per cent rise in first-half pre-tax profits to £24.2 million, driven by strong growth in retail, particularly in timber, garden maintenance and decorating, from DIY and do-it-for-me customers.
Revenue increased by 5.6 per cent year-on-year to £847.9 million in the 26 weeks to June 28. Sales from customers using its TradePro discount rose 10 per cent, with active members rising to 615,000.
Despite cost pressures, Wickes remains confident in meeting 2025 profit expectations. The shares rose 1.23 per cent, or 2½p, to 197½p.
Polish shares down after Russian drone incursion
Poland’s leading stock exchange index has fallen after the Nato nation scrambled its air force to intercept multiple Russian drones which entered its airspace early on Wednesday.
The Warsaw stock exchange’s WIG index dropped 1.3 per cent to 105,190.60, and the zloty weakened against the dollar and the euro. Ukraine’s international bonds edged lower, while the Russian rouble weakened to a more than five-month low.
The Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said the Polish military recorded 19 drone incursions in the country’s airspace overnight. He said three — or perhaps four — drones were shot down by Polish and Nato aircraft.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, drones have periodically strayed into Nato territory, including Romania and Poland, but had not previously been intercepted.
• Poland ‘shot down at least three Russian drones in its airspace’ — follow live
Ellison could snatch Musk’s richest man title
Oracle’s results boosted the fortune of Larry Ellison
JOHN G MABANGLO/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
Larry Ellison, the co-founder of software company Oracle, is on track to take Elon Musk’s title as the world’s richest man.
The US businessman’s fortune rose by $70 billion after Oracle reported better-than-expected quarterly results after the market closed on Tuesday night in New York and growing demand for its relatively low-cost cloud infrastructure services.
The shares, which have doubled so far this year, rose 29 per cent in after-hours trading, or $69.60, to $311.11 a share.
The increase lifted his total fortune to $364 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Musk is worth $384 billion.
Meta and TikTok win court battle over EU fee
The two tech giants took on the EU Commission in court
ANNA BARCLAY/GETTY IMAGES
Facebook owner Meta Platforms and ByteDance’s TikTok have won their legal fight against a European Union supervisory fee, after Europe’s second-highest court faulted EU regulators on the way they calculated the levy.
The companies sued the European Commission after they were told to pay a supervisory fee of 0.05 per cent of their annual worldwide net income to cover the EU executive’s cost of monitoring their compliance with the bloc’s Digital Services Act.
The size of the annual fee is tied to the number of average monthly active users for each company and whether each posts a profit or loss in the preceding financial year. The two companies said the methodology was flawed, resulting in disproportionate fees.
The Luxembourg-based General Court sided with Meta and TikTok, giving EU regulators 12 months to fix their methodology using a different legal act.
DCC returns £600m to investors
One of the FTSE 100’s last remaining conglomerates is returning £600 million to investors after the sale of its healthcare assets for £945 million as it tightens its focus on its energy consulting business.
DCC shares rose 4.88 per cent, or 184p, to £48.54 this morning. A further £100 million from the sale will be returned to shareholders at a later date.
The Dublin-based company announced a break-up of the business to focus on its energy operations last November. The conglomerate was initially established as a venture capital provider called Development Capital Corporation in 1976 and is considered to be Ireland’s first private equity vehicle.
Contactless limit to exceed £100
The financial regulator is proposing that the limit on contactless cards exceed £100.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it wanted card providers to be given the flexibility to decide the right limit for them and their customers.
The contactless card limit has been raised in steps over the years, currently standing at £100.
The regulator’s proposals are out for consultation until October 15.
Many card providers already offer customers the ability to adjust their personal contactless limits or turn off contactless functionality on their card altogether. The FCA said it was encouraging firms to continue to offer their customers this choice.
What to expect from the autumn budget
Rachel Reeves has to plug the gap in the nation’s finances
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE
Rachel Reeves will deliver her second budget on November 26, one of the latest in recent memory. The chancellor must plug a £20 billion-£30 billion gap to stay within her fiscal rules while preserving a fragile £9.9 billion headroom.
With rises in VAT, income tax and national insurance ruled out, attention is turning elsewhere. Areas that have been mentioned include: wealth and property taxes, landlords, banks, income tax thresholds, and sin taxes.
• Read our preview in full: Autumn budget predictions: what could Rachel Reeves announce?
FTSE 100 rises on US rate cut expectations
London’s leading share index has opened higher, helped by Wall Street where the main indices all closed up after a downward revision to job data supported expectations of a US interest rate cut next week.
The FTSE 100 was up 23 points, or 0.25 per cent, to 9,265.84 in early trading.
Upgrades by Citi and Goldman Sachs lifted Haleon, the consumer healthcare company that makes Sensodyne toothpaste, 2.2 per cent.
Polar Capital Technology Trust was another riser, buoyed by a rise in technology stock in America.
AB Foods was the biggest faller — down 10.7 per cent — after it took a £200 million hit from the closure of its bioethanol plant in Hull after the US-UK trade deal made it unviable. Also, underlying sales at its Primark clothing business are expected to be down around 2 per cent in the second half.
The pound has edged 0.07 per cent higher against the dollar to $1.3536 and the gold prices rose to a new high of $3,645.57 an ounce, up 0.5 per cent.
Inditex profits edge higher
Sales are up at Zara stores
JASON ALDEN/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
The Zara owner and world’s largest fashion retailer reported profits of €3.6 billion for the six months to the end of July, a fraction higher than the same period.
Inditex’s chief executive Óscar García Maceiras said the spring/summer collections have been well received by customers, with sales up 1.6 per cent to €18.4 billion year on year.
Maceiras called the sales performance satisfactory in a “complex market environment”, adding that the autumn/winter collections have been well received, with strong store and online sales.
Gen Z appeal boosts Gym Group profits
The Gym Group saw a 5 per cent increase in members in the first half of the year
GYM GROUP
The Gym Group, which operates 249 gyms up and down the country, has reported a jump in first-half profits, helped by increasing its appeal to Gen Z members in particular.
Pre-tax profit rose to £3.3 million in the six months to the end of June, against a profit of £200,000 last year. Revenue increased 8 per cent to £121 million and the company ended the period with 949,000 members, 5 per cent up on June 2024.
Will Orr, chief executive, said the five new gyms opened in the year to date were performing ahead of expectations, and it remained on track to open between 14 and 16 sites this year. The board now expects to deliver adjusted profit less normalised rent at the top end of consensus of between £50.6 million and £52.8 million.
AB Foods takes £200m hit to shut bioethanol plant
AB Foods is closing Vivergo Fuels near Hull
VIVERGO FUELS/PA
The FTSE 100 conglomerate, owner of British Sugar, Primark and grocery brands such as Twinings, has warned of a £200 million hit from the closure of its bioethanol plant in the UK and restructuring of its sugar business in Spain.
AB Foods set out the impairment alongside a scheduled trading update before its financial year-end. The group, which is majority owned by the billionaire Weston family, announced the closure of Britain’s biggest bioethanol plant in Hull, with the loss of 160 jobs, last month after the UK-US trade deal opened up the market to cheaper imports from America.
George Weston, chief executive of ABF, reported that the retailer Primark, its largest business, had seen “improved trading in the UK and strong sales growth in the US, while trading on the continent was softer in a weaker consumer environment”.
Housebuilder Vistry reports strong pipeline
Greg Fitzgerald, chief executive of Vistry
CHRIS RADBURN FOR THE TIMES
The troubled housebuilder has reported “a strong pipeline of development opportunities which will drive our second half performance” alongside first-half results.
Greg Fitzgerald, Vistry chief executive, left the full-year guidance for a year-on-year increase in profits unchanged. He said: “We are well positioned to deliver for the full year.”
The numbers — interim pre-tax profits down 33 per cent at £80.6 million as revenue fell 6 per cent to £1.85 billion — shouldn’t be a surprise following a comprehensive trading update in July. Completions dropped to 6,889, down 12 per cent year on year.
In 2023, the company previously known as Bovis pivoted towards building most of its homes for housing associations and institutional landlords, such as Blackstone. It warned last autumn that it had underestimated how much it would cost to build out nine major sites by £165 million. The shares more than halved in value and almost a year later have still not recovered.
Oil price rises after Doha attack
The oil price has risen this morning after Israel attacked Hamas leadership in Qatar and President Trump asked Europe to impose tariffs on buyers of Russian oil.
Benchmark Brent crude futures rose 69 cents, or 1 per cent, to $67.08 a barrel, but a weak market outlook capped gains.
Prices had settled up 0.6 per cent in the previous trading session after Israel said it had attacked Hamas leadership in Doha, which Qatar’s prime minister said threatened to derail peace talks between Hamas and Israel.
Novo Nordisk to axe 9,000 jobs
Sales of Wegovy have come under pressure from rival products
STEVE CHRISTO/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES
The maker of the weight-loss drug Wegovy is to cut 9,000 jobs in a restructuring to reduce costs by $1.26 billion a year as it faces strong competition from Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro.
Novo, which became Europe’s most valuable listed company worth $650 billion last year on booming sales of Wegovy, has seen the medicine lose market share and sales growth slow, especially in the United States.
Mike Doustdar, Novo Nordisk’s newly appointed chief executive, said: “Our markets are evolving, particularly in obesity, as it has become more competitive and consumer-driven. Our company must evolve as well.”
The company implemented a global hiring freeze in August, covering job roles that were not critical for its business. Novo, which has 78,400 employees globally, said around 5,000 of the jobs would be cut in its native Denmark.
Ruling delays Trump’s removal of Fed governor
A judge dismissed President Trump’s reasons for wanting to remove Lisa Cook
SAUL LOEB, ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Trump from removing Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook in a setback for the White House in an unprecedented legal battle that could damage the central bank’s independence.
The preliminary ruling by US district judge Jia Cobb in Washington found that the Trump administration’s claims that Cook committed mortgage fraud prior to taking office were not likely to be sufficient grounds for her removal. Cook denies any wrongdoing.
Cobb wrote in her ruling: “President Trump has not identified anything related to Cook’s conduct or job performance as a board member that would indicate that she is harming the board or the public interest by executing her duties unfaithfully or ineffectively.”
Trump moved to fire Cook in late August, but the Fed has said she remains in her position. The Fed declined to comment on the decision.
Klarna valued at $15bn as shares float at $40
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, chief executive and co-founder of Klarna
REX
Klarna, the buy-now, pay-later pioneer, has raised $1.37 billion in its US initial public offering, setting the stage for a market debut that could set the trend for high-growth fintech listings.
The Swedish company and some of its existing investors sold 34.3 million shares at $40 each, above the targeted range of $35 to $37.
At $40 a share, Klarna is valued at $15.11 billion — a fraction of the $46 billion Klarna was valued at in 2021, before higher interest rates in the post-Covid era hit the company’s bottom line.
Klarna was founded in 2006 by three Swedish entrepreneurs, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Niklas Adalberth and Victor Jacobsson, with a short-term financing model that let shoppers split purchases into interest-free instalments over weeks or months, instead of paying upfront. It was granted a UK electronic money institution licence in July, allowing it to offer balance services and cashback to its 11 million UK users.