- FTSE 100 rises 1 point to 8,648
- Miners lifted by rise in copper prices, broker support
- UK PMI survey surprises with rise, led by services sector
- Tariff 'flexibility' mooted by President Trump ahead of 2 April deadline
4.03pm: FTSE 100 flat, Europe slightly down, US soaring
The FTSE 100 is a tiny fraction – maybe a smithereens – higher than where it ended last week, as we head into Monday's final straight.
A trio of investment trusts with a large holdings of US big cap stocks, Pershing Square Holdings (LSE:PSH), Polar Capital Technology Trust PLC (LSE:PCT) and Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust PLC (LSE:SMT), top the London benchmark's leaderboard.
This reflects strong gains being seen across the Atlantic, with the Nasdaq Composite index up 2.1% and the S&P 500 up 1.7%.
Asia-focused life insurer Prudential, miners Anglo American and Antofagasta, and banks Lloyds and Barclays, are next in line.
Barclays was a top pick for analysts at Keefe, Bruyette and Woods today as they said the concept of the yield curve is "becoming more mainstream for investors" in the banking sector, where a steepening is likely to support net interest income upgrades across the sector.
Tom Stevenson, investment director at Fidelity International, notes that after four consecutive weeks of falling global share prices – mostly in the US – investors have had an easier week last week as shares ended pretty much where they started.
"Standing further back, investors might wonder what all the fuss has been about," he says.
"The MSCI World index is back where it stood six months ago, just before November’s US Presidential election."
This has "made the case for a well-diversified portfolio", he says, as the market correction has been "all about the US", while the rest of the world has done pretty well from Trump 2.0, with the MSCI All Country World Index, excluding the US, is close to its all-time high.
3.21pm: Ant Middleton: who dares wins?
While cutting benefits and introducing other austerity measures, Rachel Reeves can lay a small bit of blame for the country's fiscal woes on TV personality Ant Middleton and other tax dodgers.
Best known as the former chief instructor on the Channel 4 series 'SAS: Who Dares Wins', Middleton been banned as a director in the UK after his company failed to pay more than £1 million in tax.
In the same period, more than £4.5 million was paid into the accounts of Sway and Starting Ltd, the Insolvency Service said in a statement today, "indicating it had enough income to pay the tax it owed in full".
Following investigations by the Insolvency Service, Middleton and his wife, who has been banned for four years, were found to have ended up owing their company almost £3 million at the time of liquidation due to an overdrawn director’s loan.
The company was set up to manage income from Essex-based personality's television and media work but the directors failed to ensure the company paid more than half of the £657,000 in VAT and none of the £869,000 in corporation tax between 2019 and December 2022, when the company went into liquidation.
Middleton later agreed to repay £300,000 of the director’s loan as a settlement with the liquidator.
Dave Magrath, Director of Investigation and Enforcement Services at the Insolvency Service, said: "Companies not paying the tax they should deprives the government of the money it needs to pay for the country’s defence services, our NHS, schools and universities, and transport systems.
"Ant and Emilie Middleton had legal and financial duties as directors to ensure their company paid the corporation tax and VAT it owed. Instead, they were taking millions of pounds out of the company at that time."
The company failed to pay any of the £869,351 in corporation tax it owed between September 2019 and March 2021.
2.57pm: Shell in spotlight tomorrow
It is Shell PLC's (LSE:SHEL, NYSE:SHEL) capital markets day tomorrow, following a similar event for its smaller rival BP recently, which got a mixed reaction from investors and analysts.
Morningstar analyst Allen Good says the strategy update should bring an update on chief executive Wael Sawan's two-year "sprint" initiatives, as well as for guidance to be extended out to 2030 including production growth targets and additional cost cutting.
Capital allocation will be an element that the City will be keep a beady eye on, especially levels of capex and what it's being spent on.
Climate will also be in the spotlight, says Lindsey Stewart, director of investment stewardship research and policy at Morningstar Sustainalytics, including LNG.
A group of investors, led by UK and Australian pension funds, earlier this year filed a shareholder resolution questioning Shell's LNG demand assumptions, which they noted were higher than all scenarios envisaged by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and so therefore misaligned with a net-zero transition by 2050.
2.05pm: JD hit by broker cut
JD Sports Fashion PLC (LSE:JD.) shares are the biggest faller on the FTSE, down just over 4% to reverse gains last week on the back of Nike's earnings.
Deutsche Bank has cut its target price on the retailer after joining the post-earnings conference call last week.
Cutting her target price from 95p to 85p, DB analyst Alison Lygo noted Nike's weak outlook, with continued lifestyle declines and more inventory clearance to come, though this will mostly be taken through the outlet and discount channels.
1.45pm: Wall Street opens higher
US stocks have opened higher and those positive vibes have emanated over to London's blue chips, which have popped back into positive territory.
US stocks have opened higher and those positive vibes have emanated over to London's blue chips, which have popped back into positive territory.
Silicon Valley tech giants are leading the way, with Nvidia, Amazon and Meta all up more than 2%, with Tesla topping the lot with a 5.3% bounce to continue its drive higher seen in the latter half of last week.
Not surprisingly therefore, the Nasdaq Composite is marching at the head of the parade, climbing 1.6%, with the S&P 500 rising 1.4% and the Dow Jones 1.1%.
12.04pm: European stock gains evaporating, US futures strong
The FTSE 100 and some only European indices are the red as we pass midday.
A lot of London's 'defensive' stocks are dragging, led by healthcare and consumer names including Haleon, AstraZeneca, GSK, Hikma, JD Sports and Marks & Spencer.
Utility-like companies are also sagging, including Vodafone, National Grid and SSE.
European stock indices are also mixed, with France's CAC also in the red, and Spain and Italy's benchmarks flat, with only Germany's DAX still positive.
US futures are strong, with those for the Nasdaq up 1.5%, the S&P 500 up 1.2% and the Dow Jones up 0.9%.
US futures are factoring in an apparent softening in President Trump’s tariff threats, says market analyst David Morrison at Trade Nation.
"Trump said he would be in touch with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping this week. The news has raised some hopes of a deal being reached ahead of the imposition of US retaliatory tariffs against its trading partners due next week."
The US dollar sold off in early trade, but is back to flat, while oil prices are up around 0.5% and gold is just above flat.
Bitcoin is trading at its highest level in over two weeks, climbing above $87K.
"Chart wise, it looks as if Bitcoin has managed to consolidate and build a bit of a base to push higher," says Morrison, with a similar story seen with Ether.
11.55am: DNA data up for sale
DNA testing firm 23andMe (NASDAQ:ME) has filed for bankruptcy in the US, marking the collapse of one of the most high-profile names in consumer genetics.
The company said it will continue operating while it seeks a buyer.
But potential personal privacy issues have been raised on both sides of the Atlantic.
"Millions of people will have their DNA data put up for sale", as the Daily Telegraph puts it, as the company has tested more than 15 million people’s genetic makeup using saliva kits, including more than 250,000 in the UK.
The company said that data privacy would be an “important consideration” but added that it was seeking to “maximise the value of its assets”.
Privacy advocates have urged consumers to delete their data held by the company as it could be sold off to data brokers or to target adverts.
11.37am: Mining sector gets big upgrade
As well as a rise in copper prices, miners are being lifted by JPMorgan turning bullish on mining stocks, upgrading the sector to 'overweight' for the first time in over a year.
The bank’s equity strategists said they expect a rebound in metals prices and mining shares in the coming months, after a long stretch of underperformance, picking London-listed giants Rio Tinto Ltd (LSE:RIO), Antofagasta PLC (LSE:ANTO) and Fresnillo PLC (LSE:FRES) among its top picks.
Mining stocks have lagged the wider European market by around 50% since the start of last year, and by 20% against underlying metal prices this year alone.
The team now sees a “V-shaped” recovery kicking off in late March, fuelled by policy support in China and rising demand for copper, aluminium and gold.
11.11am: Stocks battling higher
The FTSE 100 and its European peers are clambering back higher after all taking a hit in the previous hour.
London's index is up 0.2%, while the benchmarks for Frankfurt and Madrid are up 0.6%, while the blue-chip gauges for Paris and Milan have gained 0.3% and 0.4%.
Today has seen German enterprise software company SAP leapfrog Denmark's Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) as Europe's largest company by market cap.
SAP's market cap of $340 billion edged past the maker of Wegovy, according to Reuters calculations using LSEG data.
Novo shares have fallen 19% in the year to date while SAP shares are up 7%.
Previous top company LVMH's valuation is just over €300 billion, down a third from all-time highs of 2023.
10.46am: Ebury IPO tbc soon
The £2 billion London IPO of payments firm Ebury could be knocked off course by volatile markets, with a decision on whether to pursue a listing in coming months to be made in the next few weeks.
The Santander-backed fintech, which handles international payments for small businesses, is in talks with investors about a potential listing in the coming months.
But sharp swings in global stock markets, fuelled by trade tensions and investor nerves, are clouding the timing, chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown told The Times.
10.34am: Two hospitality sector stories
UK hospitality companies have asked the UK’s competition body to launch an investigation into potential overcharging of energy prices for the sector's small and mid-sized businesses.
A letter has been sent by the UKHospitality trade body to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) calling for an investigation as SMEs are forced to use energy brokers, which it says puts them at risk of aggressive sales tactics and undisclosed commissions.
UKHospitality said in the letter that a formal competition investigation is "the only way to address the entrenched competition problems in this market".
The energy market has "unscrupulously excluded businesses from accessing energy, charged them extortionately when they do offer contracts and treated operators with contempt when they come to suppliers for help," UKHospitality chief Kate Nicholls said, according to the Guardian.
Also today, UKHospitality has launched the new 'social productivity index', which reveals that the sector is one of the most effective at delivering growth widely across the economy, creating positive social impact and ensuring social and geographic accessibility.
Hospitality ranks first in employing part-time workers, employing under-25s and access for non-graduates, the index reveals, and is in the top five for geographic spread, gender balance, employment of non-white British team members and proportion of people in managerial roles without a degree.
10.01am: PMI shows inflation still a concern for BoE
"Stubbornly high price pressures will add to BoE’s concerns about upside inflation risks," says economist Ashley Webb at Capital Economics on the UK PMI update.
"Despite the rise in the composite activity PMI in March, it’s still consistent with the near-stagnation in GDP in recent quarters continuing in Q1."
Webb acknowledges the more positive signs, including that businesses intend to shed jobs by less than previously feared to cope with higher taxes.
"But with price pressures still elevated, the BoE will be concerned about the growing upside risks to inflation."
What he says was most striking, was the rebound in the employment balance, from 43.5 to 47.4, after six monthly falls in the past seven months, which chimes with Capital Economics' own employment indicator, "which gives an overall signal on employment and suggests jobs growth is cooling rather than collapsing".
Overall, says Webb, "this combination of less worrying news on employment but still elevated concerns about prices increases the chances of the BoE pausing interest rate cuts a bit earlier than we expect, perhaps in May rather than in August".
But he still thinks the weak economy will mean the BoE still reduces interest rates from 4.50% to 3.50% next year rather than to 4.00% as investors anticipate.
8.53am: Eurozone PMI not as strong as hoped
The French composite PMI came in higher than expected, rising to 47 from 45.1, Germany’s increased slightly less than expected to 50.9 from 50.4 as a rebound in manufacturing was offset by a much softer services sector.
The overall EU composite PMI inched up to 50.4 from 50.2, which was not as strong as predicted thanks to unimpressive reports from the services sector.
Eurozone private sector activity has “picked up marginally” so far this month, says Melanie Debono, senior Europe economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics as activity picked up in Germany and the downturn in France eased while output in the rest of the eurozone recorded a further solid increase.
Based on its past relationship with GDP, Debono says the eurozone composite PMI “points to GDP growth slowing from the 0.2% quarter-to-quarter increase recorded in Q4, below our forecast for a 0.3% rise.
“But we are not too worried. We are taking more of a cue from the direction of travel of the index which averaged 50.3 in Q1 after 49.3 in Q4, given that the actual level of the index has underestimated growth in recent quarters.”
9.48am: Fastest PMI growth since the election
The PMI survey indicated that business activity expansion across the private sector gained momentum in March, says S&P, with the fastest upturn in the services sector since last August.
Services companies reported improvements in both domestic and overseas sales, while manufacturers experienced "severe headwinds to demand" from rising global economic uncertainty and potential US tariffs.
Weak international demand resulted in the fastest decline in manufacturing export sales since August 2023, the survey found, with production volumes down by the most since October 2023.
Service providers reported an increase in new work for the first time in 2025 so far, with some commenting on a "tentative turnaround in demand conditions", especially in consumer services, while headwinds to demand from political and geopolitical uncertainty remain.
Regarding inflation, with official figures out later this week, input cost inflation eased further from January’s nine-month high, with services companies recording steeper rises than manufacturers due to "intense" wage pressures.
Output charge inflation was unchanged since the previous month, as slight slowdown in the service sector offset an acceleration in factory gate price inflation to its strongest since April 2023, blamed on forthcoming increases to National Insurance contributions and the minium wage, though were also "sporadic reports" of discounting to stimulate sales.
9.34am: UK PMI shows improvement
The UK services sector is showing signs of picking up this month, according to the closely followed PMI survey.
A 'flash' preliminary reading of the UK CIPS/S&P Global services purchasing managers' index survey rose to a seven-month high of 53.2 for March from 51 in February.
The manufacturing PMI provided less good news though, falling to 44.6 from 46.9.
Putting them together, the flash UK PMI composite output index rose to 52.0 from 50.5, reaching a six-month high.
A reading above 50 indicates expansionary conditions, or contraction if below that mark.
9.11am: Don't fall for the New York 'myth'
The London Stock Exchange was pushing back at the weekend against the growing trend of companies eyeing New York listings, warning of the "myths" that are attracting companies there.
It highlights hidden costs and risks of floating in the US, The Sunday Times has reported.
In a new analysis sent to banks and IPO hopefuls, the LSE argues that London offers lower fees, broader investor diversity, and fewer legal liabilities for directors compared with New York.
8.57am Trade trip hazards
While the White House has pledged a flexible approach (see below), there are "trip hazards around", says market analyst Susannah Streeter at Hargreaves Landsown.
"The extent to which the US could play hardball will be underlined at a meeting called by the US Trade Representative at the International Trade Commission today."
This hearing has been called to consider plans to impose up a fine of up to $1.5 million on every Chinese-manufactured ship which docks at a US port, or even on ships from a fleet which contains Chinese-made vessels.
"This is designed to weaken China as the world’s top shipbuilding nation, given that it has secured more than 62% of all new ship orders globally," says Streeter.
"Trump wants to see more ships built in the US but a significant shift up in production will take years.
"Instead, the policy would push up port fees dramatically for not just US importers but exporters too, with concerns that it will knock demand for commodities like coal and LNG, making US goods uncompetitive."
She adds that this is adding to worries that US companies and consumers will soon start to bear the brunt of US trade policy.
8.45am: Flexible approach to tariffs, says White House
All European stock benchmarks have opened higher, with the FTSE's 0.5% gain matched in Paris, while Germany's DAX is up 0.7%.
US futures are also on the front foot.
Boosting sentiment were reports that the White House could go easier on tariffs, with Donald Trump saying: "There’ll be flexibility, but basically it’s reciprocal."
The US President has said April 2 will be "Liberation Day" for the country when he will unveil reciprocal tariffs.
"But sector-specific levies on automakers, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors – which he’d touted last month – may no longer be the flavour du jour," says market analyst Neil Wilson at TipRanks.
Reciprocal action is to be narrowed to what Trump's Treasury Secretary has called the "dirty 15" trading partners, which account for most of the US’s foreign trade.
The question, says Wilson, "is whether shelving sectoral tariffs is enough to dampen the impact of punitive tariff rates on these countries...the situation remains ‘flexible’.
"The point worth stressing today is that flexibility does not necessarily mean good, and it signals more uncertainty and headline risk as the market continues to second guess what Trump does next. Maybe check carmakers on this one...Trump seems quite keen to shield Detroit as much as he can."
8.32am: Celadon out the cellar door
After the IPO news below, there's also more AIM departure news from Celadon Pharmaceuticals PLC, whose shares have plunged 34% after the company confirmed plans to delist and announced the immediate resignation of four non-executive directors.
The sell-off followed a power shift on the board led by chief executive James Short, who owns nearly 40% of the company.
Last week, Short informed the board of his intention to remove the chairman and all four non-executives, having failed to gain support for his proposal to take the business private.
8.14am: FTSE comes out swinging
The FTSE 100 has come out swinging, led by its group of mining heavyweights, up close to 47 points or 0.5% to 8,693.4.
Anglo American and Antofagasta are top of the leaderboard, jumping 3.9% and 3.1% on the back of a rise in copper prices.
Glencore and Rio Tinto are right behind them, up almost 3%.
Banks are also among the risers, with Standard Chartered and Barclays in the lead, along with tech investor Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust.
7.48am: AIM IPO green shoots
For those who missed it, Wellnex Life Ltd (ASX:WNX) made its AIM debut on Friday, after a £5.22 million equity raise that helps the Aussie health and wellness products firm expand its portfolio.
It said the proceeds will fund the acquisition of Pain Away, a topical pain relief brand, adding it to a portfolio of wellness products including sleep aid, a caffeine-based energy product, iron supplements, oral hygiene and medicinal cannabis.
Also in the health sector, One Health Group, which provides outsourced medical procedures for the NHS, is looking to raise up to £7.5 million and also join London’s junior market.
It plans to use the proceeds to build its first surgical hub, which it expects to cost up to £9 million and be operational within a year of construction starting.
Quantum Base Holdings, a company with patented technology to ensure the authenticity of products, has also announced its intention to float on AIM next month.
It will be raising between £3 million and £5 million in the process, with the new funds earmarked for product development and to support an expansion of its commercial teams.
7.27am: Wood extension
John Wood Group PLC (LSE:WG.) has pushed back its 'put up or shut up' deadline for its Dubai-based suitor, Sidara.
Talks are continuing over a possible cash offer for the FTSE 250 company.
A new deadline for Sidara to make a firm offer has been set for 5pm on 17 April, after the Takeover Panel consented to an extension.
7.16am: FTSE rebound in the frame
A FTSE 100 rebound is in the frame for the start of the week, ahead of the release of purchasing managers index (PMI) data later and a fairly busy week ahead, with more tariff talk likely.
On the futures market, the London benchmark is up 27 points, which will wipe off around half of the 55 lost at the end of last week, which closed at 8,646.8.
Asian markets are mixed this morning, mostly in the green, but Japan's Nikkei in the red following the release of disappointing PMIs.
Japan’s flash manufacturing PMI plunged 0.7 points to 48.3 in March, hitting the lowest level since March 2023, while the services business activity index plummeted for the first time since November 2024, falling by 3.6 points to 49.5 in its flash reading for March.
Tariff talk is likely to "intensify" as Donald Trump's April deadline approaches, says Ipek Ozkardeskaya, market analyst at Swissquote Bank.
"The week will probably be heavy with tariff talk. The early-week echoes are positive with rumours that the upcoming tariffs would be more measures than previously thought. But, who knows," she says.
"Investors will be watching the March preliminary PMI numbers today... The European figures could confirm an improved set of numbers, as well, due to the positive impact of massive government spending on overall mood across the old continent, while the US numbers are under the threat of a sharp fall in US growth expectations."
Announcements due on Monday 24 March:
Interims: Abingdon Health
Finals: Caledonia Mining Corporation PLC, RTC Group PLC, S4 Capital PLC, Social Housing REIT PLC, Tandem Group PLC
US earnings: Intuitive Machines
AGMs: Herald Investment Trust, Rights & Issues Investment Trust, Vela Technologies, Versarien
Economic news: Flash PMIs (UK, EU, US)