- FTSE 100 climbs 83 points to 8,783
- BP jumps as new activist investor revealed
- Gold reaches another new record high
4.01pm: FTSE nudging new highs every minute
The FTSE 100 has been charging ever higher this afternoon, nudging its record highs ever higher like a dog nosing a ball uphill.
BP's gain on the back of a new activist investor and further all-time highs for the gold price, driving the index's precious metals miners, have been the two main narratives today.
BP is up almost 7% currently, with Fresnillo and Endeavour Mining up 5.2% and 4.1%.
Housebuilders Barratt Redrow, Taylor Wimpey, Berkeley Group and Persimmon are all also up more than 2%, to provide a further boost.
"Had an investor just woken up from a month asleep, it would seem that there wasn’t much to worry global markets right now," says market analyst Chris Beauchamp at IG.
"Friday’s inflation panic and tariff jitters have been entirely forgotten over the weekend. This Monday is very different from its two predecessors.
"Two weeks’ ago saw the DeepSeek AI news roil markets, and a week ago it was the Mexico/Canada/China tariffs, but the third time has been the charm for investors, who have surged back into the market despite recent developments.
"As ever, markets climb the wall of worry."
Among the FTSE's 20 largest stocks, the few in the red include oil colossus Shell, drinks maket Diageo and defence giant BAE Systems.
Oil prices gained slightly today, "but after three weeks of losses it is far from clear that the downward move is over," says Beauchamp.
"Traders await any news of the administration’s plans to ‘drill, baby, drill’, which risk another slump for the commodity."
3.40pm: Could Trump tax gold?
With gold reaching a fresh record high at the start of this week, up more than 10% so far this year, outpacing US equities and most global equity indices, investors are thinking "what next?".
The gold price soared through $2,900 per oz this morning and topped out in the past hour at just short of $2,911.
While gold is usually driven by central bank policy and inflation concerns, Kathleen Brooks at XTB says the latest high seems linked to Donald Trump’s trade tariff threats.
"Trump’s latest round of tariffs on steel and aluminum were not country specific, so it could be harder to negotiate a reversal.
"Also, the fact that tariffs are now a reality for industrial metals means that precious metals could be next.
"Thus, there is a rush to bring gold back onshore. Gold is also acting as the most reliable haven in this new era of tariffs and global trade wars, it has avoided the tariff fatigue that has set in among other markets, such as stocks."
Gold has also been benefitting from 'safe haven' demand, amidst geopolitical and trade tensions, and while gold and the dollar historically move counter to each other, both have been soaring at the same time.
This is a sign of how strong demand for gold is right now, says Brooks, while also boosting gold miners in London, South Africa and elsewhere.
"This is an interesting junction for gold," she says, with $3,000 in focus, but a move downwards also in play.
It could be a "buy the rumor, sell the fact" situation, she wonders. "If Trump doesn’t levy tariffs on gold in the coming weeks, will investors start to sell?
"Added to this, gold tends to trade sideways around key psychological levels. For example, it moved in a range between $1600- $2,000 between 2022-late 2023, and we could see similar range bound activity if investors push the gold price above $3000 anytime soon."
3pm: Fevertree drinks deal takes fizz out of earnings growth
Fevertree Drinks (AIM:FEVR) was downgraded by Deutsche Bank today, where analysts say the Molson Coors deal "lacks near-term fizz".
Shares in the mixers maker fell 1.5% today as the bank cut its rating to 'hold' from 'buy', and its target price to 800p from 1325p.
Analyst Deirdre Mullaney says: "Initially, we thought the deal with Molson Coors represented a positive move for the Fever-Tree brand in the US and the overall investment case for the equity."
But having run the numbers with more precise details of the partnership, while it looks a "positive strategic step" for US growth, "the negative impact on the near term financials mean any potential meaningful upside is several years away, in our view".
2.22pm: FTSE notches another record
The FTSE 100 has notched another new all-time high, having climbed over 70 points to top 8,771.
BP is still the top riser, up 6.5%, with a cabal of miners behind.
Precious metals are prominent, given the new high for the price of gold, with Fresnillo PLC up 3.5% and Endeavour Mining PLC rising 2.1%, while copper specialist Antofagasta PLC also up there.
Airlines and defence stocks are notable in the red.
Defence stocks could be down as Donald Trump's Russia-Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg is reported to have been preparing options for ending the war in Ukraine to present to the White House.
1.45pm: UK steel worries
UK Steel says the tariffs proposed by Donald Trump will be a "devastating blow".
The US is the UK's second largest export market after the EU, points out Gareth Stace, the director general of the UK steel industry body
"At a time of shrinking demand and high costs, rising protectionism globally, particularly in the US, will stifle our exports and damage over £400m worth of the steel sector’s contribution to the UK’s balance of trade."
He adds that it would be "deeply disappointing" if Trump decided to target UK steel, given its "relatively small production volumes compared to major steel nations".
The US was the destination for around 5% of UK steel exports in 2023, around 166,433 tonnes.
Stace said there was the potential that to avoid the US tariffs, other nations might move to sell steel at lower prices to the UK market.
"The introduction of further US tariffs will inevitably divert global trade flows, with excess steel potentially redirected to the UK market," he said.
A 10 Downing Street spokesman told media that the government will hold back from speculation, "given we haven’t seen any detail".
12.15pm: FTSE leads European gains, US stocks set to join
Just after midday, the FTSE 100 is up another 50 points or 0.6% at just over 8,751 – only around 17 points from a new all-time high.
London's blue-chip benchmark is the strongest of the major European indices this morning, with the DAX and CAC both up 0.2% and others gaining between 0.3% and 0.4%.
Looking across the pond, US stocks are set to head higher as well.
Nasdaq 100 futures are up 0.6%, while those for the S&P 500 are pointing to gains of 0.4% and those for the Dow Jones just under 0.3%.
After President Trump announced plans for new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, companies making pre-market gains included several steel-makers
Nucor Corp, a steel manufacturer and recycler, was up 9.6% pre-market; along with Cleveland-Cliffs, Reliance, Steel Dynamics, United States Steel and Alcoa.
11.55am: Should Rolls be broken up like Honeywell?
The announced break-up of US industrial conglomerate Honeywell last week, has led to some thoughts about whether something similar could create value for Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC (LSE:RR.) among investors.
"We are not convinced," said Citi.
While deriving a valuation for a company based on a sum-of-parts calculation can "prove whatever result is required", the investment bank did concede that this process "becomes more valid when potential break-ups could occur".
Following Honeywell's announcement to split into three parts, Citi worked out a simple sum-of-parts for Rolls, which produced a fair value for Rolls-Royce in the 550-650p range, which analysts did not feel was worth it given that the shares ended last week at just over 602p
11.11am: OpenAI looking to bypass Nvidia
ChatGPT developer OpenAI is close to producing a new microchip with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co to circumvent Nvidia or at least strengthen its hand in agreeing future deals.
Last October the AI company was revealed to be working with Broadcom and TSMC to build its first in-house chip to train its AI models.
Today, Reuters reported that OpenAI is "finalizing the design" for the chip in the next few months for the 'taping out' process with TSMC for intended mass production in 2026, if the process goes to plan.
10.38am: UK tax system driving up costs
The UK’s increasingly complex tax system is driving up costs for both the government and businesses, according to a report by the National Audit Office (NAO).
HMRC’s administrative expenses rose by 15% in real terms since 2019-20, reaching £4.3 billion in 2023-24, the Guardian first reported, with further increases expected.
The number of income taxpayers grew by 4.5 million between 2020-21 and 2023-24, partly due to frozen tax thresholds pulling more people into higher tax brackets.
Small businesses, especially landlords, are expected to face additional challenges as they transition to digital tax records.
10.15am: Le Stargate
France has unveiled €109 billion (£91bn) in investments for its AI industry from private companies and investment groups, in its answer to the USA's Stargate scheme.
President Emmanuel Macron highlighted major contributions of €20 billion from Canadian investment firm Brookfield, promised funding of up to €50 billion from the United Arab Emirates, and mooted contributions from Orange and Thales, mostly towards AI-focused data centers
Macron made the announcement on Sunday evening ahead of the start of the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit this week, which is being held in Paris this year.
"Europe is going to speed up, France is going to speed up. And for us, France, we're announcing at tomorrow's summit €109 billion of investment in artificial intelligence over the next few years,” President Macron said on French public television.
He said the investment is "exactly the equivalent for France of what the United States announced with Stargate", which he said is at the "same ratio" as the country's 68 million citizens is five times fewer than America.
On Sunday, TechCrunch started counting all the investment pledges from foreign and local players that have been rolling in over the past few days. With €30 to €50 billion coming from the United Arab Emirates (and MGX), €20 billion coming from Canadian investment firm Brookfield, €10 billion coming from Bpifrance and €3 billion coming from French telecom company Iliad, we reached a total of up to €83 billion ($85 billion).
So a few companies haven't announced their plans just yet. During the interview, Macron mentioned Orange and Thales as other investors in the program. Most of the investments will go toward new AI-focused data centers. Hence, the comparison with Stargate.
Macron also shed a light on French AI startups, such as Mistral, Wandercraft and Owkin, which has moved its headquarters to the U.S. He believes Europe is still competitive when it comes to artificial intelligence startups and even said that DeepSeek represented an opportunity to catch up.
“There was a race to scale up. Everybody thought you always had to be bigger and stronger. What did DeepSeek do with its open models? They have taken all accessible innovations from the latest OpenAI model and adapted them to their own model, using a more frugal approach,” he said. “Everyone will continue to do this. And that's why you have to be in this race.”
Mistral’s own data center project
Arthur Mensch, co-founder and CEO of Mistral, also announced plans to invest billions in an AI cluster. The Paris-based company is arguably the only European company working on foundation models that can compete with models from Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, Alibaba and others.
“We're going to do our bit and invest several billion euros in a cluster, which will be set up in Essonne, so that we can train even more efficient systems in just a few months' time,” Mensch said on French TV TF1.
Those announcements could be considered as a reaction to the Stargate Project, a $500 billion investment program led by OpenAI and SoftBank to build multiple data centers for AI in the United States.
As a reminder, the majority of France’s electricity production comes from nuclear power plants. France also produces more electricity than it needs. As tech companies are looking at new locations for power-hungry data centers — ideally powered by carbon-free electricity — France appears as an ideal location in Europe for these new projects.
9.54am: 'New significance' for BP investor day
BP PLC's (LSE:BP.) upcoming strategic review "may have new impetus", says Citi.
The key strategic update, which was recently pushed back a few weeks to 26 February, has "seemingly taken an even more important turn" given the report that activist investor Elliott is now involved, oil analysts at the investment bank say.
The analysts suggest "the most obvious pathway to change" would be to reset the ambitions for the Low Carbon business, which they note has consumed 20% of net investment in the last five years, as well as reducing the associated cost-base that has supported these ambitions.
9.27am: Jobs market update
The UK jobs market worsened last month, with permanent and temporary placements falling steeply as recruiters pointed to the worst conditions since the pandemic.
Numbers of permanent vacancies dropped for the 15th month in a row and with the largest fall since August 2020, according to KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).
Permanent salary growth softened too, easing to around the slowest pace in the current sequence of inflation that began in March 2021 and well below historical trends.
Vacancies for temporary workers also fell at the sharpest rate in over four-and-a-half years.
The report found employers reluctant to hire staff given upcoming changes to the cost of employing staff, which were unveiled in the Autumn Budget.
8.56am: European stocks on front foot
London's FTSE 100 is not alone in the green this morning, with its 0.4% gain matched by the FTSE MIB in Milan and with Madrid's IBEX 35 not far behind.
In Frankfurt, the DAX is up 0.3%, with the CAC 40 a little below that in Paris.
The Euro Stoxx 600 has put on 0.4%, with top risers being LSE-listed BP and Drax.
This is despite another story emerging over the weekend on the BBC that the Yorkshire power station has failed again to report it burned wood from primary and old-growth forests, that have never been industrially logged and lock up and store significant amounts of carbon.
But Drax has announced an agreement with the UK government for payment of electricity from all four of the biomass burners at its power station at a strike price of £113 per megawatt hour between April 2027 and March 2031.
Elsewhere, some strength in the oil price weighed on airline shares, with BA owner IAG the biggest FTSE faller, followed by easyJet.
BP and strength across the housebuilding sector helped nudged the index higher, says Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor.
"The FTSE 100 continues to test new highs and has risen by almost 7% so far this year following a possible inflection point which has attracted the attention of a new raft of overseas interest, bolstered by its reputation of being something of a haven destination in turbulent times.
"Meanwhile, the FTSE 250 has shaken off some earlier losses to have moved ahead by 1.6% so far this year, despite the increasingly obvious challenges facing the domestic economy."
8.38am: New high for gold
The price of gold has etched a new record high, topping $2,896 per ounce this morning.
Market analysts say gold's recent strength is on the back of a mix of factors, including geopolitical uncertainties, inflation concerns, central bank easing, and steady demand for the yellow metal from central banks and retail investors.
"While global bond yields have been rising, which is typically a headwind for gold, that trend has paused since mid-January, allowing gold to keep its momentum," says Fawad Razaqzada at City Index.
Kathleen Brooks at XTB says Trump's latest tariffs announcement late on Sunday could also be behind it.
The US President, on board Air Force One last night, said he would put 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium imports today, with Canada, Mexico and Latin America likely to be the most impacted given that's where the US imports most of these goods from.
Announcing this late on Sunday "suggests that he is not too worried about the market reaction", says Brooks, as typically Trump has announced tariffs earlier in the weekend, as if he was watching the reaction and to give himself time to back track before stocks or risk assets sold off too sharply.
"This may suggest that Trump is determined to impose tariffs on these industrial metals. These tariffs are targeting specific products, rather than individual countries, which makes it hard for any negotiations to take place.
"We think that this move could boost the gold price, as it may lead to a further flurry of demand to bring gold on shore to the US, in case Trump imposes tariffs on precious metals.
"The question for investors is whether gold will reach the psychologically significant $3,000 level on the back of ever-growing tariff levies."
8.11am: FTSE makes small splash, BP leads the way
The FTSE 100 has splashed higher in initial trading after a small early wobble into the red.
In the first 10 minutes or so, the index has added 23 points to reach 8,724, a gain of just under 0.3%.
BP is leading the way, up over 6% on the news that it has Elliott Investment now on its shareholder register.
7.59am: BP has demanding new investor
Among the notable news from the weekend, BP PLC (LSE:BP.) has attracted the interest of aggressive activist investor Elliott Investment Management.
Elliott, led by Paul Singer, has built up what Bloomberg reported is a "significant stake" in the oil supermajor.
BP shares are down a fifth from highs in 2023 and almost 40% since all-time highs in 2026, not helped by some major missteps over the years and plenty of other issues being picked apart by analysts and investors more lately.
The oiler is expected to answer some big strategic questions at a planned capital markets day later this month, where CEO Murray Auchincloss now also has a new investor to impress.
7.40am: Another SpaceX contract for Filtronic
Radio-wave component specialist Filtronic PLC (LSE:FTC) has secured its largest production order from Elon Musk's SpaceX, this time worth $20.9 million (£16.8 million), to be fulfilled in both the current and next financial years.
The Durham-headquartered outfit, whose shares are up over 150% over the past 12 month, said as a result of this latest contract it is confident of exceeding current market expectations for revenue and profit in both years.
Chief executive Nat Edington said the order "underscores Filtronic's reputation for delivering high-performance RF solutions to our market leading customer".
In April last year, SpaceX was issued warrants to buy shares in the microwave technology group, as part of an initial deal to supply E-band solid state power amplifier modules for SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation under a $19.7 million deal.
7.28am: China inflation remains low, EV prices still falling
Stocks in China and Hong Kong are up despite consumer price inflation reaching its highest since August.
The Chinese consumer price index ticked up to 0.5% year-on-year in January, from 0.1% in December. Core inflation, which excludes the more volatile foods and fuel prices, was up 0.6% from 0.4% the months before.
Producer prices fell at a steady 2.3%, extending the decline begun in October 2022, with broad deflation across major industrial sectors.
"Headline consumer inflation should subside after Lunar New Year and return to weak inflation, with a still modest recovery in consumer spending and falling prices for autos and some other manufactured goods," says Duncan Wrigley, chief China economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
Prices of electric vehicles and other new energy cars dived 5.8% in January, while traditional fuel car prices fell 4.6%, Wrigley pointed out, amidst a car trade-in scheme that offers government subsidies for eligible buyers and where competition "remains intense" and auto producer prices dropped 3.1% in January, after a 3.8% fall in December.
"People are worried about income prospects with the still soft labour market and the risks of trade conflict. Policymakers are likely to expand targeted fiscal support for consumption at the March budget, but won’t do a mega stimulus."
He sees PPI deflation as "likely to continue this year, given the domestic supply-demand imbalance, barring an external energy price shock.
"China’s stimulus policies are likely to boost domestic demand only gradually, though are likely to be stepped up if export growth is threatened by an escalating trade war with the US."
His base case is a "limited trade war that drags on into H2 and 2026, with an increasingly large growth impact. But even then we don’t expect China to do a US-style large consumer handouts".
7.16am: FTSE to make quietly positive start
The FTSE 100 is expected to have a quiet start to the week, though the overnight announcement from US president Donald Trump of new 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports might throw a spanner in the works for some sectors.
Futures markets have called the London index up around eight points after last week it set new record highs but finished on a down note at 8,700.53.
US stocks also finished in the red at the end of the week, with the main benchmarks down either side of 1%.
Asian markets are mixed this morning, with the Hang Seng up 1.7% and the Shanghai Composite raising 0.6% but India's Sensex down 0.8%.
5am: What's in store
Monday has no big economic data in the calendar but starts a busy week, including US inflation figures for January and UK gross domestic product data.
There's several big UK companies reporting this week, including the first of the high street banks, who are two of 79 Euro Stoxx 600 companies reporting this week, while US earnings include 75 companies from the S&P 500.
Announcements due:
Finals: Porvair PLC
US earnings: McDonald's Corp, Vertex Pharmaceuticals
AGMs: Argo Group Ltd, Artemis Resources Ltd, Triple Point Social Housing Reit PLC