- FTSE 100 climbs 40 points to 10,846
- Rolls and LSEG impress with results and buybacks
- Hikma and Ocado lead fallers
4.45pm: Another day of gains
The FTSE 100 continued its record-breaking run on Thursday, adding 40 points at 10,846.
“Inevitably, today has seen another FTSE 100 record high, leaving it well placed to make a push to 11,000 next week,” IG chief market analyst Chris Beauchamp said.
“Nvidia’s earnings last night delivered everything investors could ask for, and still the stock has fallen again. Hesitation around the AI trade and its vast expense remains rife, holding back US markets even while Europe and Asia continue to make gains.”
4.05pm: London stocks enjoying late support
London's blue-chip index is enjoying a late-session tailwind as it nears the final trades of the day, helped by LSEG's gains rising to 10%.
The index is up 0.3% today to a new all-time intraday high and is on course for a record closing finish.
Since the start of last week it is up 3.5%, up over 6% since the end of January, just shy of 9% so far this year, over 24% since a year ago and over 41% over the past two years.
The mid-caps are outperforming today, with the FTSE 250 up 0.35%, but it has lagged its big sibling over the past months and year, up 1.5% in the month, and 15% over the year, which is not bad.
Top risers today are Me Group, Kainos, Jupiter Fund Management, Trustpilot, Bytes Technology and WPP.
3.53pm: Investigating Nvidia's share price
Some takes and analysis of the world's biggest company.
Nvidia's fiscal fourth quarter earnings per share and revenue beat the Street consensus handily, with guidance also topping expectations, with Nvidia projecting fiscal first quarter revenues between $76.44 billion and $79.56 billion, compared with analysts' projections of $72.6 billion.
UBS, which reiterates its 'buy' rating, notes that revenue guidance was "above nearly every investor bogey we heard pre-call and demand commentary was as bullish as we have probably ever heard from the company with backlog now building into C2027".
"Despite all of this goodness, the stock was still only flattish in the aftermarket - maybe due in part to the new inclusion of stock comp in non-GAAP EPS which means that we are actually trimming C2026E EPS.
"At the end of the day, it is hard to see how the stock continues to languish," UBS adds, especially as annual growth (which it notes has actually been highly correlated with NVDA shares) starts to re-accelerate in the second half of this year and growth at memory/optical/semicaps starts to decelerate.
The shares have dropped, says Kenny Polcari at Slatestone Wealth, "because this isn’t about whether NVDA delivered. It did. This is about expectations.
"The market wants certainty. It wants guarantees that the AI capex boom won’t slow. That hyperscalers won’t blink. That margins won’t compress. That nothing breaks. And that’s laughable," Polcari adds. "We’re talking about a company growing revenue 70%+ at scale — and the complaint is that it wasn’t even better. This is what happens when a stock becomes the proxy for an entire industrial revolution. The bar moves from 'beat' to 'prove it again – and make it bigger'."
While Nvidia shares fell 4.8%, Kathleen Brooks compares this to Rolls-Royce, up 5.6%.
"Although Rolls Royce posted a solid earnings report, it’s not at the same level as Nvidia’s, which reported a 65.5% increase in revenues in 2025, compared to a year ago. So why are investors favouring RR over Nvidia?"
Partly, she reckons, the contrasting fortunes between Nvidia and Rolls Royce are down to "a concern that the bulk of Nvidia’s deep-pocketed customers, the hyperscalers, can maintain their current pace of capex spending".
There is also "a sign of a preference for European stocks over US stocks", she says. "There could also be a political element to this, as investors are put off US assets due to a weak dollar, concerns about central bank independence and tariff friction.
"US geopolitical interventions in regions like Venezuela and rising tensions with Iran, have reshaped expectations for political stability and global security, that feeds into demand for Rolls Royce. At the same time, investors are scrutinizing the IA trade like never before."
3.39pm: Main movers largely unmoved
There's been very little change in the shape of the Footsie movers today
Howden Joinery and London Stock Exchange Group are top of the leaderboard, up 10.8% and 8.7%.
They are followed Rolls-Royce, which has lost a little of its momentum from this morning, not surprising when it's pushing new all-time highs and is up 115% over the past year and over 1,000% over five.
Other risers include Entain, up 4% in line with a rebound seen with US gambling stocks, and Haleon, bouncing back from yesterday's fall.
Then there are some rebounding names hit in the recent 'AI disruption' sell-off: RELX, Experian, Sage Group, Rightmove and Autotrader.
Among the fallers, Hikma's decline has not really diminished, down 15% as guidance for 2026 suggests slower group revenue growth of 2-4% and core operating profit in the range of US$720-770 million, compared to sales growth of 4.8% and operating profit of US$784 million expeted.
Gold and silver miner Fresnillo and copper miner Antofagasta are both down over 5%, with smaller losses for Anglo American, Rio Tinto, Metlen Energy & Metals and Glencore.
2.48pm: Mixed start for US stocks
It's a mixed start on Wall Street.
While the Dow has started up 0.4%, the S&P 500 is down 0.3% and the Nasdaq has dropped 0.6%.
Nvidia is down 2%, with Alphabet, Meta, Broadcom, Tesla also down similar levels.
Biggest fallers on the Nasdaq 100 are Broadcom, Pinduoduo, Seagate, Synopsys, Western Digital, AMD and Micron, down 2.2-1.5%.
Top risers for the Dow are Nike, up 2.05%, with American Express and Salesforce, reversing the afterhours decline.
Back in London, the FTSE has flattened off. More on that in a sec.
“.. Are AI Disruption Fears Overpriced? Buy our BofA US Oversold AI Disruptees [basket] or even better, buy call sprds on this gem.” - B of A desk
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) February 26, 2026 at 3:10 PM
2.04pm: US jobless claims rise
US new jobless claims have risen, with 212,000 initial claims in the week ending February 21, an increase of 4,000 compared with the previous seven days.
Initial claims were lower than the 216K estimate but up from the previous 206K, which was revised up to 208K.
Continuing claims fell to 1.833 million from 1.864 million, down more than expected (est 1.858 million).
1.40pm: Haleon and Diageo still in focus
Some brokers notes worth flagging.
Haleon shares are rebounding 3.6% today after the big fall yesterday, which came as it faces a familiar market dilemma after solid profit delivery was overshadowed by weaker than expected sales growth and cautious guidance.
For 2026, it is guiding to 3-5% organic revenue growth and high single-digit constant currency EBIT growth, but Deutsche Bank points out that the 3-5% sales range is below the group’s longer-term algorithm and makes its 4-6% medium term target "not look credible", particularly after a year of destocking in the drug channel.
Diageo, meanwhile, is down another 1.8% and are down around 14% in the day-and-a-half since the booze maker cut its dividend by half and signalled a further round of margin compression in the year ahead.
Analysts at both Citi and RBC Capital Markets remained supportive, saying the market has overreacted.
While reducing its dividend forecast, Citi said the concern now is mechanical: income funds that held Diageo for its yield may be forced sellers in the near term, adding pressure to a stock that has already fallen sharply from its peak.
On the underlying business, both sets of analysts expect organic revenue to contract around 2-3% in the current financial year, in line with management's own guidance, before returning to modest growth in 2027.
The tougher challenge is at the profit line.
12.31pm: Wall Street stock futures flatter now
US stock futures have been slowly ticking higher and are now broadly flat.
Nasdaq futures are down 0.04%, Dow Jones futures are even flatter, down 0.002%, while S&P 500 futures are up 0.007%.
Helping things, Nvidia shares are now up 1.5% in premarket trading, having earlier been flat on the back of last night's earnings.
Salesforce is still down 3%, however.
11.54am: Migration numbers fall more than expected
The number of UK work visas was cut sharply in 2025, while the backlog of initial asylum applications was slashed by a significant increase in the speed at which asylum claims were processed, according to data released today by the Home Office.
The government granted 168,000 in the past calendar year, down by around a fifth from the previous year and half the level in 2023, amidst tougher immigration policies.
Numbers of people claiming asylum (including dependants) was 101,000, similar to the levels in 2024 (105,000).
Net migration into Britain has fallen far more than the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast at the time of the Autumn Budget.
The impact of this is likely to be flagged by the OBR in the data supplied to Chancellor Rachel Reeves in the Spring Statement next week.
11.37am: Top SMIDs
Three new companies have been added to the top 20 UK SMID stocks list maintained by broker Panmure Liberum: discoverIE Group, GlobalData and Watches of Switzerland.
Anal;ysts Robert Kerr and Paul Wildman highlight that of the 20 names, 65% have a shareholder value score at 7 (on a decile scale where 0 is the worst) and above, and 65% have a valuation score also above that level, with Central Asia Mining maintaining its place as the highest current score at 9.6.
"These two scores are normally negatively correlated and indicates the market is still not pricing the UK SMID's in a coherent fashion."
Looking at the new entries, discoverIE Group has steadily been growing its return on capital employed since 2022 and that is forecast to continue. "It is still cheap especially for the growing quality with another score above 6 and FY2 P/E below 15x."
GlobalData is added as revisions momentum has started to inflect positively for EPS and sales. "Despite being on the front foot, using AI for their One Platform model and gathering more proprietary datasets they are in the ‘AI loser’ basket currently."
Watches of Switzerland has "seen an impressive inflection" in revisions momentum over the last six months and a strong move in the share price. "Despite this it remains in the top quintile for value on a capital returns basis and only 11x P/E for FY2."
11.01am: Household costs eased at end of last year
The Office for National Statistics has released its quarterly household costs indices for different UK household groups, providing an insight into inflation as experienced by different types of households at different income levels, working or retirement age and with or without children.
Overall UK household costs rose 3.6% in the year to December 2025, a decrease from 4.0% in the year to September.
Costs for both low-income and high-income households increased by 3.7%.
Private renters and social renter households both saw an annual inflation rate of 3.8%, though this dipped for both groups from the prior quarter, from 4.5% and 4.1%, respectively.
Outright owner occupiers had the lowest annual inflation rate of all tenure types, at 3.4% in the year, with households on mortgages the next lowest at 3.7%.
Non-retired households continued to experience a marginally higher annual rate of inflation, at 3.7%, than retired households (3.5%); though both groups saw a decrease of 0.4 percentage points compared with the preceding quarter.
Costs for households with children grew by 3.7% in the year to December 2025, while costs for households without children increased by 3.6%, both also saw a decrease of 0.4 percentage points.
10.34am: UK ale brewery to be closed, London power network sold
A couple of stories from newspaper business sections.
Sharp’s, the brewer of Doom Bar, is to be closed by its US owner, Molson Coors, putting about 200 jobs at risk.
The Guardian reports that the Chicago-based company said it plans to shut the Cornish brewery, along with its national call centre in Wales, saying it was “no longer financially sustainable”.
Molson, which bought Sharp’s 15 years ago, said it was planning to close the site by the end of this year but is exploring potential deals with other producers tocontinue to produce beer under Sharp’s brands, which include Atlantic and Twin Coast pale ales.
Tom Stainer, chief executive of the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), said any plans to produce the Cornish beers outside the region “would be a disgrace”.
Elsewhere, French utility giant Engie has strick struck a £10.3 billion deal to buy the entire power distribution network for London and the South East of England, the Telegraph and a few others report.
It had agreed to buy UK Power Networks from groups controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Sir Li Ka-shing.
"The deal will mean that the power networks of London and the South East will be controlled by France, which already owns a significant portion of Britain’s nuclear power infrastructure. All five nuclear power stations in the UK are operated by France’s EDF – which together provide around 12pc of the country’s total electricity," the Torygraph says.
10.13am: LSEG AI assurances get more credence than Salesforce
The Footsie is only inching higher this morning as individual company stories are providing the main upward force, but wider falls in certain sectors are applying a brake.
The blue-chip UK index has is being "propelled by superstar engineer Rolls-Royce which is going from strength to strength, and London Stock Exchange Group staging a recovery", says market analyst Dan Coatsworth at AJ Bell.
“Kitchen seller Howden Joinery also continued its run of quietly getting on with the job and then reminding the market it can still take a step forward in a difficult market."
For LSEG it's AI assurances are being listened to more than others.
Across the pond, Salesforce shares fell in pre-market trading after its earnings, as its efforts to say "everything will be fine" fell on deaf ears as investors worry that AI might destroy prospects for business software providers.
Coatsworth says LSEG "looks to be in defensive mode" after becoming targeted by activist investor Elliott.
“The tone of its results is one of a business trying to convince the market (and Elliott) that it is doing much better than its share price would suggest."
He says management banged the drum to about how the company has consistently met or exceeded medium-term guidance set out in 2023 and also played "the trust card" to describe how it is an important provider of data, implying that people might not get the same quality of information through third-party AI tools.
"Dangling a new £3 billion share buyback carrot in front of investors is certainly one way to get them on side, but Elliott might view that as only the first in many steps to get the shares moving up again. The drama is only just beginning."
As for Rolls, he says the shares surging to a new all-time high "is one of the most impressive business turnarounds in decades", with new boss Tufan Erginbilgic "not simply fixing a few broken doors, [but has also] sorted out its problems and then taken the business to another level".
Coatsworth adds: "The fact it is confident enough to upgrade mid-term targets just goes to show how Rolls-Royce is in full health. That raises expectations for the business and means there is no margin for error."
9.50am: Nvidia gets big shrug - why?
Nvidia delivered another blockbuster quarter overnight, blowing past Wall Street expectations as demand for AI chips continues to soar.
The chipmaker reported fourth-quarter revenue of $68.13 billion, topping analyst estimates of $65.91 billion and marking a 73% increase from a year earlier, while adjusted EPS was up 82% to $1.62, above the $1.50 expected and Nvidia’s 16th beat in the past 17 quarters.
So why did the stock barely move?
My colleague (and boss) Ian Lyall has a look here.
9.25am: Ocado met with scepticism
Shares in Ocado are down 9.5% as investors looked past the rise in earnings and focused on execution risks surrounding the company's cash flow targets.
Boss Tim Steiner said the group expects to turn cash flow positive in the second half of 2026 and deliver full-year cash generation in 2027, adding that a "significant number" of jobs would be cut as part of £150 million in cost reductions.
Adam Vettese, market analyst for eToro, says guidance for cash flow positivity and cost cuts "sounds promising, but investors are clearly unconvinced, prioritising execution risks over promises", adding that contract fragility and capital intensity remain unaddressed.
9.06am: FTSE fights back
The FTSE 100 has fought its way above the waterline, up 19 points to 10,826.
Most of the grunt work in this battle is being done by the sizeable gains for Rolls and LSEG, which are two of the index's top 20 largest companies, but with the opposing force of miners on the downside.
Fresnillo is down due to a 2% fall in silver prices, with gold little changed at $5,176 an ounce. Antofagasta, Anglo American, Glencore and Rio Tinto are more affected by a 0.45% decline in copper.
Diageo, Sainsbury's, Tesco, M&S and Unilever are also in the red.
The slow start for the Footsie comes as "investors are taking a breath ahead of crucial talks over Iran’s nuclear programme, analysing the global debt pile and assessing the latest raft of tech results", says market analyst Susannah Streeter at Wealth Club.
She says metals prices are being moved by "heightened geopolitical risks" as US-Iran talks resume, amid warnings from the Trump administration that military strikes will follow if an agreement is not reached on limiting Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
"Despite concerns that crude shipments could be disrupted in the Middle East, a lid is being kept on oil prices, as worries about conflict collide with expectations of oversupply in the world market. Industry data shows oil stocks in the US increased at a weekly rate not seen for three years, while Saudi Arabia has upped its exports to the highest level in nearly three years."
8.32am: Top risers Howden, Rolls and LSEG
Howden Joinery is top of the FTSE leaderboard, up 7.3% as the kitchen maker reported full-year results that were better than expected, with a new £100 million buyback launched today.
Management stated confidence in hitting 2026 consensus (op profit £364m) and the year has started in line with its expectations.
Analyst Charlie Campbell at Stifel says: "It is reassuring to see Howden continuing to outperform a sluggish UK kitchen market. Howden remains a high-quality compounder with decent exposure to UK RMI recovery - winning back volumes and margin lost in the cycle could see earnings 40% higher."
Rolls-Royce is the second biggest riser, a 6.5% gain for the company that is now the sixth biggest in the index at a £115 billion market cap.
Profits for last year came in 6% ahead of consensus forecasts, driven by the Power Systems arm, with free cash flow 3% ahead.
Lower tailwinds from long-term service agreement growth than expected, said analyst Chloe Lemarie at Jefferies, means "this a high quality release".
Civil Aerospace margins have now reached 18.8%, around a 500bps improvement from the previous year, she also noted, with 2026 and 2028 guidance "well ahead of consensus", and the buybacks deserve to be well received.
London Stock Exchange Group is up 4.8%.
"The company has clearly listened to the new activist investor Elliott Advisers," says Koachim Klement at Panmure Liberum, "the buyback is large and turns LSEG into one of the highest yielding stocks in the UK.
"The problem is that this buyback is not sustainable in the long run and doesn't help with the biggest long-term problem of the company, the high debt load. But for today, this should significantly lift the share price and we continue to recommend LSEG as the company best positioned of the data vendors covered in our theme to fend off the attack from AI."
8.15am: FTSE opens slightly lower as mining HALO weighs
The FTSE 100 has wavered higher and lower in the first few minutes of trade, with falls for miners offsetting gains for LSEG and Rolls-Royce.
At the moment, the index is down 6 points at 10,800.
Hikma Pharmaceuticals is leading the fallers, down 16% as guidance for the coming year is below expectations.
Next is precious metals miner Fresnillo, down 3.1%, followed by Anglo American and Antofagasta, both down around 1.8%.
That aforementioned HALO can sometimes be a weight around the neck, it seems.
8am: LSEG launches £3bn buyback, leans into AI debate
London Stock Exchange Group has unveiled a fresh £3 billion share buyback after sharply increasing profits last year, thanks to strong growth across its data and markets businesses.
The FTSE 100-listed group leaned into the debate around artificial intelligence, after being caught up in the eye of the 'AI fear trade' in recent weeks.
Chief executive David Schwimmer said LSEG is positioning itself as “the partner of choice for licensed, trusted data as the use of AI in decision-making scales – and we are seeing very positive signs of adoption”.
He highlighted AI-focused partnerships were with Anthropic, Databricks, Microsoft, OpenAI, Rogo and Snowflake, built on its data infrastructure.
7.52am: Ocado eyes positive cash flow and job cuts
Ocado Group said it is on track to turn cash flow positive next year after a strong rise in earnings from its technology arm and as it cuts a "significant" number of jobs.
Adjusted EBITDA increased 59% to £178 million as revenue swelled 12.1% to £1.4 billion in the 52 weeks to 30 November.
Chief executive Tim Steiner said: "FY25 was a year of tangible progress", though two major overseas clients have retrenched in recent months.
He said the group remains on track to turn cash flow positive in the second half of 2026 and deliver full year cash generation in 2027, in part as a "significant number of roles will no longer be required" as Ocado reduces technology and support costs.
7.33am: Rolls plans £9bn of buybacks as results beat forecasts
Rolls-Royce has upgraded its medium-term targets and unveiled plans to return up to £9 billion to shareholders after reporting another sharp jump in profits and cash flow.
The FTSE 100 engine maker posted final results showing underlying operating profit jumped 40% to £3.5 billion in 2025, as revenue increased 13% to £20.1 billion. Free cash flow climbed to £3.3 billion from £2.4 billion.
Revenue, profit and cash flow were all above company-compiled consensus forecasts.
Boss Tufan Erginbilgic hailed the ongoing transformation, saying Rolls is "consistently achieving outcomes that were not possible before our transformation" and that an ever stronger balance sheet is allowing significant investment to support long-term growth and a £7-£9 billion share buyback for 2026-2028 with £2.5 billion to be completed this year.
7.16am: FTSE 100 and the HALO trade
The FTSE 100 is projected to extend its gains further into uncharted territory on Thursday as analysts coined a new acronym for the stock market rotation: HALO – Heavy Assets, Low Obsolescence.
On the futures market, London's blue-chip benchmark has been called 17 points higher, a day after it added a hefty 125.8 points to finish at a record closing high of 10,806.4.
US stocks also enjoyed a good session, led by a rebounding tech sector, which saw the Nasdaq gain 1.3%, the S&P 500 add 0.87% and the Dow Jones climb 0.6%.
The HALO trade, explains market analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya, "suggests that companies with large physical assets are likely to attract capital flows as they are less vulnerable to rapid technological disruption, unlike many high-growth software/AI names.
"Investors are rotating from expensive AI and growth stocks into businesses with tangible infrastructure and long-lived assets — energy, materials, industrials, shipping, and other 'real world' enterprises."
In this context, she says the FTSE 100 is "well positioned to benefit from HALO inflows, rallying from record to record, driven by energy and mining names".
After the US close, Nvidia delivered another blockbuster quarter but its shares are up only 0.2% in afterhours trade, with Nasdaq futures pointing 0.2% lower.
Salesforce also reported earnings and has slipped 4.6% in afterhours trade despite beating analyst expectations on both revenue and earnings, but with guidance just below consensus.