- FTSE 100 falls 38 points to 9,216
- UK services sector sentiment remains negative, CBI finds
- Nvidia shares fall afterhours as earnings mixed
- Aviva, Glencore, Croda go ex-div
4.52pm: FTSE 100 lower at the close
The FTSE 100 has continued its poor run, finishing Thursday’s session down 38 points at 9,216.
“A slew of names going ex-dividend today has hampered the FTSE 100, while it looks like the much talked about rotation away from tech has now begun to go back the other way following Nvidia’s numbers,” IG chief market analysts Chris Beauchamp said.
“The sky hasn’t fallen in despite the lack of real fireworks in the chip titan’s earnings, and with the Trump-Fed spat quiet for now we are seeing some renewed strength in tech, most notably Alphabet’s surge to a new high.”
4.09pm: FTSE stuck in reverse
After starting higher, the FTSE 100 has been in reverse gear for most of the day and does not look like turning that around, down at the index's lowest since Wednesday last week.
Real estate, utilities and defensives are leading the fallers, along with a band of heavyweight stocks going ex-dividend, including Aviva, Glencore and Auto Trader.
Land Securities, British American Tobacco, RELX, London Stock Exchange, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, Vodafone, Centrica and SSE.
Also, of the top 15 largest companies in the index, only three are not in the red (HSBC, Rolls and Rio Tinto).
Top risers today include JD Sports, Weir, DCC and Spirax, along with miners exposed to copper, with Anglo American, Rio and Antofagasta all up as prices for the orange metal were given a lift.
European stocks are mixed, with Germany down, France up, while in the US the Nasdaq is up 0.4% now, despite Nvidia being lower.
3.46pm: Fed's Cook challenges Trump dismissal move
Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook has filed a lawsuit claiming the US president has no authority to fire her.
The lawsuit attacks Donald Trump's “unprecedented and illegal attempt” to remove her from the Fed board at the start of this week, calling it an attempt to undermine the central bank’s independence.Cook aid.
Filed in a Washington DC federal court, it calls for Cook’s firing to be voided on the basis that Trump does not have the power and that it would be "the first of its kind in the board’s history".
It cites the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 that "explicitly requires a showing of ‘cause’ for a governor’s removal".
Then it says: “An unsubstantiated allegation about private mortgage applications submitted by Governor Cook prior to her Senate confirmation is not [cause].
"President Trump’s letter purporting to fire Governor Cook did not cite appropriate cause for removing her from the board of governors."
3.40pm: Dotcom bubble klaxon
Valuations in the AI sector are approaching dotcom-era levels, UBS has warned, with US technology stocks trading at an economic price-to-earnings multiple above 35 times.
The bank noted that excitement around AI has driven unprecedented investment, with combined capex from Meta, Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft this year expected to exceed that of the entire listed energy and utilities sectors in the US and Europe.
While US tech giants generate 37% of the country’s total economic profit, UBS said future cash flows remain uncertain.
Valuations "flashing red" leave "little room for cash flow disappointments", UBS said, against a background where "multiple unknowns" could still weigh on the medium-term cash flow return on investment and growth trajectories of AI players.
Risks include unclear returns on investment (one big uncertainty is that the use cases of AI are yet to be fully understood), power supply constraints for data centres, and rising R&D spending in China.
2.49pm: Wall Street opens lower as Nvidia falls
Wall Street's main indices have all opened slightly lower, with the Dow Jones down 0.15%, followed by the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, both down around 0.1%.
Nvidia opened higher, but is now down 2.5% to $177.1.
Biggest fallers on the S&P are Hormel Foods, down 17% after quarterly profits come in below estimates due to rising commodity costs, and Cooper Companies, down 13% after a downgrade from Citi.
2.30pm: Asda sees improvement in Q2, but says Q3 will be hit by new systems intalls
Asda issued a second-quarter update earlier, showing a 0.2% decline in like-for-like sales, compared to a 3.1% decline in Q1.
The grocer said this was its best performance in five quarters, and the fourth consecutive quarter of improved LFLs.
Total revenue, excluding fuel was £5.3 billion, down 0.2% too, as the chain continued its Rollback price cuts on over 50% of products.
Executive chairman Allan Leighton says the quarter saw a "clear improvement in performance", with volumes and LFL sales strengthening, "driven by better product availability and our material investment in price".
He says this "widened the price gap over competitors and firmly re-established Asda as the best-value traditional supermarket".
This week saw the completion of the installation of new systems, which Leighton says saw some "temporary disruption with product availability and in our online experience, which will impact our sales outturn in the current quarter".
2.24pm: We'll have to wait to see true impact of tariffs on US economy
The US economy grew a little more than previously thought in "but it doesn’t significantly alter the trajectory or the distribution of risks to our forecast for growth in the second half of the year", says Ryan Sweet, chief US economist at Oxford Economics.
He notes upward revisions to business investment in structures, equipment, and intellectual property, as well as consumer spending.
"Investment related to AI is helping mask some of the weakness elsewhere in the economy, but the good news is that there is little sign that this support is set to fade anytime soon."
Real final sales to domestic purchasers, what Sweet calls the "engine of the economy", were also revised higher, but he says this is unlikely to alter the Federal Reserve’s assessment of the health of the economy as it focusses on the downside risks to the labor market.
The BEA release was the first look at real gross domestic income, he adds, which rose 4.8% in Q2, noticeably stronger than the 0.2% gain over the first three months of the year.
Second-quarter corporate profits were up 1.7% quarter-on-quarter, reversing much of the 2.3% decline over the prior three months.
"This doesn’t include industry-level corporate profit margins. Therefore, we’ll have to wait to gauge if tariffs had a noticeable impact. Odds are that the hit to corporate profit margins will be more visible in Q3."
1.43pm: US GDP upgraded
US economic growth has been upgraded, with the second estimate of GDP coming in at 3.3% for the second quarter, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis revealed, up from the initial estimate of 3%.
This was a rebound from the decline of 0.5% in the first quarter.
The revision reflects an improved estimate for investment and consumer spending in the last quarter, though this was partly offset by a downward revision to government spending and an upward revision to imports.
12.23pm: FTSE leads European declines, US futures pare losses
Just past midday and the FTSE is leading a decline across a mixed European picture, down 0.4% along with a 0.15% fall for the DAX, while France's CAC continues to creep back after sharp losses at the start of the week.
US futures are mixed now, with the premarket losses for Nvidia having been pared back from 3% to under 2%.
Nasdaq futures are down 0.1%, Dow Jones futures are up 0.1%, while those for the S&P 500 are flat.
11.53am: Oil prices to soften
Oil prices are down 0.5% today, with Brent crude at $67.7 a barrel, up from lows near $60 in early May, but below June's six-month peak of almost $77.
Tariffs and sanctions related to Russia, as well as attacks on Russian oil facilities, are keeping oil prices "resilient" in the high-$60s, says Citi.
This is despite the "looming oversupply that should lower prices", as the production return from OPEC+ has "disappointed".
Citi says that if US-Russia-Ukraine negotiations make no progress, then tariffs on Russian oil purchases are likely to remain in place, but oversupply is expected to have a greater impact into the year end.
As a result, Citi is maintaining its third-quarter Brent price average forecast of $66 a barrel, with a Q4 forecast for Brent to average $63 per barrel.
11.20am: Call for London listing changes
Wall Street banks are laughing at the very idea of tech firms floating in London, according to a story on CityAM.
Barney Hussey-Yeo, chief executive of London fintech firm Cleo, said the head of investment banking of one firm laughed when a London IPO was mentioned for the £107 million-revenue outfit.
He said Rachel Reeves should use the upcoming autumn budget to introduce policies to help London compete.
“When Wall Street mocks London’s exchange, Britain has a problem,” Hussey-Yeo said.
Executives from Clearbank, Atom, Revolut and Zilch earlier this year met the Chancellor earlier this year and called for incentives for London listing.
11.03am: Gold - always believe in your store of value
Gold has become popular again with investors in the past couple of week, climbing back up to $3,400 per oz, and remains one of the best performing assets in the past two years.
After rising 27% in 2024, it’s already up another 28% this year.
Despite rises like this, portfolio manager Ian Samson at Fidelity International says bullish environments for gold "can run strongly for many years", providing "diversification even when bonds do not" and maintaining what he calls an "ultimate ‘safe haven’ status" against inflation and loose economic policies.
Gold also benefits from structural trends, Samson says.
"With a macro base case of a US slowdown or even stagflationary environment in the coming months, we remain positive on the outlook for gold."
If the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates, despite inflation still around 3%, and with many outside the White House warning that tariffs are likely to keep prices elevated, Samson says the mix of falling interest rates, sticky inflation and subdued growth "should all bolster gold".
"It should lead to a subdued US dollar, which is gold’s main competitor as a safe haven and store of value.
"We have never seen this scale of uncertainty and change around tariff policy, and the effects are yet to dissipate."
As for the structural argument story, he says foreign reserve managers at countries such as China, India, and Turkey are still adding to their holdings of gold to diversify exposure away from the US dollar, while global gold ETF holdings continue to increase.
"More broadly, gold supply is very constrained, meaning even a small increase in portfolio holdings could move the dial. For instance, if foreign investors decide to move some of the 57 trillion US dollars they currently hold in US assets, gold is a likely beneficiary."
10.49am: Some European data
The EC's economic sentiment indicator fell to 95.2 in August from 95.7 the month before, below the consensus forecast of 96.0.
This reflected the consumer confidence sub-index falling, while services and industrial confidence were little changed.
Meanwhile, the eurozone M3 money supply growth accelerated slightly, slightly below the consensus estimate of 3.5%.
10.35am: Slight services sector improvements
The CBIs latest service sector survey shows a slight improvement in sentiment compared to the previous quarter, though it remains negative.
Services business volumes fell in the quarter to August, albeit at a slower pace than the three months to July.
Over the coming three months, companies expect a further improvement in volumes.
The business lobby group says cost pressures are rising due to higher employment costs, while subdued demand conditions are holding pricing power in check.
The CBI found that services employment is set to follow a similar trend next quarter with falls expected in both sub-sectors but for the rate of decline to continue softening.
"While there are pockets of resilience, our latest survey paints a grim picture of the services sector," says Alpesh Paleja, the CBI's deputy chief economist.
Higher costs and pressure on prices is leading to lower hiring, investment and profits, he says, with companies "increasingly shifting focus to short-term fire-fighting".
He took the opportunity to call for the government to "boost business confidence" and cut the tax burden and "a rethink of the Employment Rights Bill".
10.02am: FTSE slides lower
The FTSE 100 is down 30 points now, with grocer Tesco, defence contractor Babcock, property portal Rightmove and engine maker Rolls-Royce joining the big fallers.
At the top end, there were benefits for US exporters, says AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould.
"A modest recovery in the dollar, despite the ongoing concern about the independence of the Federal Reserve, was good news for big US earners like JD Sports and Diageo.
"Miners also did some of the heavy lifting for the UK index early on."
Tesla sales continue to be in reverse in Europe, with figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association showing the US EV company's shipments fell 40% last month.
The company sold 8,837 vehicles across the European Union, the EFTA trade block and the UK in July, down from 14,769 in July 2024.
9.27am: Softcat prowls the leaderboard
Topping the FTSE 250 is Softcat, with its shares up 4.5% after the IT reseller lifted guidance in its year-end trading update.
The company now expects mid-teens growth in operating profit for the year to 31 July 2025, up from prior low-teens guidance.
Cash conversion is expected at the top end of the guided 85%-95% range.
8.59am: Pause for market gains predicted
The FTSE 100 is in the red now, down four points at 9,251.
Recent rallies for London and Wall Street are "likely to be on pause", says market analyst Kathleen Brooks at XTB, with US futures also pointing to a tepid open later today.
"Global stocks have had a strong August so far, led by US indices, and markets are a sea of green so far this month, however that rally looks like it will take a temporary pause, as the market digests disappointing Nvidia result."
Although Nvidia's CEO said that revenues from China could top $50 billion in the next year, Brooks says delays selling chips into China "gives China time to develop their own domestic chips, which is an ever-present existential threat to the Nvidia’s tech dominance".
She also highlights China’s Cambricon, one of the largest listed AI chip designers in Asia, which is the best performing stock on the CSI 300 index in the past month, up 117%.
"It is worth noting that S&P 500 and the Russel 2000 have both outperformed Nvidia in the past month," Brooks says.
"The equal weighted S&P 500, which strips out the effect of the big tech companies, has also outperformed Nvidia in recent days and this may continue. For now, we look for the continued outperformance of Asian tech vs. US tech and for non-tech related stocks to outperform in the US.
"This is also good news for indices like the FTSE 100, which do not have much tech exposure."
8.31am: Spotlight on China and India
While Nvidia shares fell, those in Chinese chipmaker Cambricon jumped 16% as it revealed a 44-fold jump in revenue, swinging from a half-billion yuan loss to a one-billion yuan profit in a year, thanks to demand from customers such as Alibaba, DeepSeek, ByteDance and Didi.
"Beijing is encouraging tech giants to buy local chips to reduce reliance on US suppliers," notes analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya at Swissquote Bank.
"But caution: at the current valuation, Cambricon trades on a PE ratio of 514, compared to Nvidia’s 52. If you find Nvidia expensive, Cambricon is ten times pricier on earnings."
Another Chinese chipmaker, SMIC, rose 8% today and trades at a PE of 110, she says.
"In summary, speculative chip bets are shifting toward Chinese names. There’s certainly more opportunity in established players like Alibaba, which trades at relatively lower multiples than US peers.
"And frankly, if the valuation gap is due to government risk, well – US government risk has risen enough to justify some convergence."
Speaking of governments, she highlights Mexico announcing higher tariffs on Chinese imports "to please Trump", while India's new 50% tariffs on exports to the US puts its ambition of becoming America’s “backyard factory” at risk.
India's Nifty 50 and Sensex indices are again under pressure, but Ozkardeskaya points out that only 9% of Nifty 50 revenue comes from the US, and Washington wants more production brought back home anyway.
"India may have more to lose from giving up cheap energy than from giving up some US export demand. Domestic support from the Reserve Bank of India and government could bolster local equities."
8.16am: FTSE edges higher, ex-divs weigh
The FTSE 100 rose eight points to 9,263.5 in early trading on Thursday.
Top of the leaderboard were Bunzl, Diageo, Rentokil and WPP, all businesses with a strong US tilt, along with miners Anglo American and Rio Tinto, all up around 1-2%.
Fallers are led by Aviva, Londonmetric Property, Auto Trader and Croda International, the shares of which have all gone ex-dividend today, along with Glencore, Games Workshop and Alliance Witan. This knocks 4.3 points off the index.
On the FTSE 250, Drax shares are down over 8%.
7.57am: Drax probe opened by FCA
Drax Group (LSE:DRX) is under investigation by the UK financial watchdog relating to past statements about its sourcing of wood for biomass.
The Financial Conduct Authority confirmed that it has opened an investigation into the North Yorkshire-based group, but did not say more.
The FTSE 250-listed company said the probe covers related to certain statements between January 2022 to March 2024 regarding its biomass sourcing and compliance of its 2021, 2022 and 2023 annual reports with the listing rules, disclosure guidance and transparency rules.
More details on Drax's past statements here.
7.29am: A bull speaks
Nvidia earnings, according to big fan Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush, were not the disasppointment suggested elsehwere.
Ives says it was "another robust quarter after the bell, beating the Street estimates on the top and bottom-lines again while providing stronger guidance than Street expectations with demand continuing to outstrip supply for the new oil and gold of the AI revolution".
Demand for Blackwell chips "remains strong", with the company claiming it could generate between $2 billion to $5 billion in revenue for H20 chips while mentioning China represents a $50 billion total addressable market growing at 50% per year.
"While Jensen would not commit to the 50% growth officially, this speaks to the massive eye-popping opportunity coming out of China for Nvidia with a new pay for play model reopening the all-important China market for Nvidia," says Ives.
He called it a "very important print and guide for the broader tech world and it shows the AI revolution is heading into its next gear of growth despite the current headwinds with China".
7.16am: FTSE called higher, while Nvidia disappoints
The FTSE 100 has been called higher on Thursday, though many investors will be focused on Nvidia's shares falling in afterhours trading after earnings from the world's biggest company by market cap disappointed in some departments.
Futures are calling the London benchmark up 11 points, reversing the 10.3 points lost yesterday when the index closed at 9,255.5.
After a solid performance from Wall Street's main indices, with the S&P 500 up 0.2% to a new record closing high, while the Dow Jones rose 0.3% and the Nasdaq 0.2%, the main event of the week was second-quarter numbers from Jensen Huang's semiconductor outfit.
The company's revenue gain of over 50% beat forecasts, with guidance for the current quarter largely in line with expectations, but revenue at the main data centre division was very slightly below estimates at $41.1 billion compared to the $41.3 billion estimate.
Sales to China remained a major source of uncertainty, as the chipmaker didn’t record any sales of its H20 chips to China in the quarter but said it hopes to ship anywhere from $2 billion to $5 billion of the chips this quarter if it can overcome geopolitical issues.
While the White House allowed a resumption of export licenses for H20 chips to China in return for 15% of the revenue, the company said this plan had not yet been codified.
Nvidia shares are down 3.1% in afterhours trading.