{"id":456813,"date":"2026-03-04T09:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T09:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/456813\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T09:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T09:31:10","slug":"stocks-wobble-uk-faces-energy-bills-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/456813\/","title":{"rendered":"Stocks wobble; UK faces energy bills warning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\tWednesday 04 March 2026 6:45 am
\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\tWednesday 04 March 2026 8:43 am\n\t<\/p>\n

\"Oil\t\tThe FTSE 100 sunk as oil prices spiked amid the war in Iran.\t<\/p>\n

Good morning and welcome back to the City AM liveblog.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Rachel Reeves delivered her Spring Statement.<\/p>\n

The Chancellor wheeled out new forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility that cut growth for 2026 but \u2013 albeit modestly \u2013 upgraded it for the years to come.<\/p>\n

But forecasts were quickly labelled out of date by economists in the City as the backdrop of the war in the Middle East threatened to wreck inflation estimates and send the FTSE 100 tumbling.<\/p>\n

The UK gas price surged to its highest level in three-years on Tuesday after nearly doubling in the space of two days to highs of 165p a therm. It later gave up some gains but finished at 138p a therm \u2013 over a fifth higher than Monday\u2019s price.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, oil briefly rose above $85 a barrel for the first time since July 2024.<\/p>\n

The frenzy has economists sounding the alarm on inflation.<\/p>\n

\u201cA prolonged conflict in the Middle East could trigger a steep rise in UK industrial and residential\u00a0energy\u00a0bills when the new\u00a0energy\u00a0price is announced on July 1, suggesting headline\u00a0inflation\u00a0could rise sharply in the second half of this year,\u201d Raj Badiani, economics director at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said:\u00a0<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s this uncertainty that but bond markets on alert, with the UK\u2019s 10-year gilt yield \u2013 a key metric indicating the government\u2019s cost of borrowing \u2013 rose around 20 basis points at a peak before falling to finish the day around 10 basis points higher.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll be bringing you the latest as the situation continues to unfold.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a few of our top stories yesterday:<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n

\t\t\tSpring Statement Live: UK growth cut for 2026 but Reeves touts future forecasts<\/a><\/p>\n

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\t\t\tPeople & Organisations\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wednesday 04 March 2026 6:45 am \u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0 Wednesday 04 March 2026 8:43 am The FTSE 100 sunk as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,127968,14171,141,4229,1344,12897,2016,164671,105842,42027,105843,105844,108330,152813,105845,152814,152815,152816,152817,152818,152819,2983,164672,63492,59,1568,1431,585,1634,467,32120,50,2987,20987,164673,164674,164675,581,164676,1445,163474,426,10907,6635,164677,30295,56,1893,735,93399,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-456813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-consumer-inflation","10":"tag-core-inflation","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-economics","13":"tag-energy","14":"tag-ftse","15":"tag-ftse-100","16":"tag-ftse-100-live","17":"tag-ftse-150","18":"tag-ftse-250","19":"tag-ftse-350","20":"tag-ftse-aim","21":"tag-ftse-all-share","22":"tag-ftse-fledgling","23":"tag-ftse-shares","24":"tag-ftse-small-cap","25":"tag-ftse-stocks","26":"tag-ftse-trading","27":"tag-ftse-update","28":"tag-ftse100","29":"tag-ftse250","30":"tag-gas","31":"tag-gas-price","32":"tag-gas-prices","33":"tag-gb","34":"tag-gold","35":"tag-inflation","36":"tag-iran","37":"tag-labour","38":"tag-markets","39":"tag-markets-live","40":"tag-news","41":"tag-oil","42":"tag-oil-and-gas","43":"tag-oil-and-gas-services","44":"tag-oil-major","45":"tag-oil-price-cap","46":"tag-oil-prices","47":"tag-oil-sector","48":"tag-rachel-reeves","49":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","50":"tag-trade","51":"tag-trump","52":"tag-trump-administration","53":"tag-trump-guilty","54":"tag-trump-tariff","55":"tag-uk","56":"tag-uk-economy","57":"tag-uk-government","58":"tag-uk-inflation","59":"tag-united-kingdom","60":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}