- FTSE 100 starts up 14 points at 10,733
- UK unemployment rate holds at 4.9%
- Natural resource stocks move on macros
- Brent crude oil rises to $92
16:15pm: FTSE to mark boringly positive close
The London index is set to close around 14 points, at around 10,733 with around 10 minutes left on the clock.
Patrick Munnelly, market strategist at Tickmill Group, in a note, said investors remained cautious amid rising US-Iran tensions, limited fresh catalysts and a mixed UK labour-market report.
"Geopolitics remained the dominant risk," Munnelly said.
"The 60-day Middle East ceasefire agreement has expired, and Washington has rejected an extension. Iran warned of a strong response to any fresh attacks and said it is preparing to shift to a “fully offensive” military posture. That kept markets wary, supported oil-linked names and discouraged broad risk-taking."
12.41pm: Footsie treads water while Wall Street eyes the oil price
Afternoon all. If you came looking for fireworks, you've picked the wrong day.
The blue-chip index is flat, listless and light on volume, the very picture of a market becalmed in the summer doldrums. Traders are back at their desks in body, if not entirely in spirit, and the UK benchmark is drifting rather than trending.
Across the Atlantic, there is rather more going on, none of it especially cheerful. US futures are pointing lower, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 down 1% and the S&P 500 off 0.4%, as the Middle East muscles its way back onto the front page.
President Trump has promised fresh economic pain for Iran and, in a phrase not found in any central banker's handbook, threatened to "bomb" Oman if it interferes with America's designs on the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil, predictably, perked up. Brent has nudged to $91 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate to $84, their highest in a fortnight, reviving the inflation worries everyone had hoped to leave on the beach.
That has bonds twitching too. The US 10-year Treasury yield has climbed to 4.72% and the 30-year to 5.31%, a 19-year high, as government borrowing and the great AI spending spree keep the pressure on.
For now, London looks content to watch from the sidelines and let New York do the fretting.
Whether the Footsie can stay this serene once Wall Street opens is another matter entirely.
11.19am: Musk's SpaceX casts a shadow over two London growth trusts
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Two of London's growth trusts are on the back foot, and Elon Musk is the common thread. Scottish Mortgage and Polar Capital Technology Trust are both in the red, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq set to open lower and dragging anything with a Silicon Valley tilt down with it.
The sharper worry, though, is SpaceX. A second tranche of insider stock, 319 million shares, slips its lock-up on Thursday, heaping fresh supply onto a share price that has spent much of its brief public life below the $135 float mark.
That follows a far bigger unlock on 6 August, which more than doubled the pool of freely traded shares. For Scottish Mortgage, the read-through is obvious, since SpaceX is comfortably its largest holding at around 18% of the portfolio.
Polar Capital Technology is a different beast, its real bet being chips and AI rather than rockets. So today's dip owes more to the Nasdaq than to Musk, with the SpaceX stake present but decidedly modest.
9.54am: UK labour market still stuck in the mud, brokers say
Britain's jobs market remains stubbornly stagnant, according to reaction notes from Deutsche Bank and Panmure Liberum following this morning's figures.
The headline numbers made for gloomy reading.
The jobless rate held flat at 4.9%, defying hopes of a slight dip, while HMRC data showed payrolled employees fell by 13,000 on the month.
Wage growth cooled too, with private sector pay slowing to 2.8%.
But Deutsche Bank reckons a closer look reveals tentative signs of stabilisation.
Job vacancies, a decent proxy for demand, dipped only marginally to 707,000, suggesting the market may be near the bottom.
Redundancies slid to their lowest since July 2025, the claimant count eased to 4.3%, and the quits rate ticked up for the first time in over a year.
That last point matters, as workers tend to jump ship only when they feel confident about finding something better.
Panmure Liberum was more circumspect, branding it a mixed bag.
The broker flagged the sheer volatility of the monthly data, which has lurched from a 12-month low in May to a near six-year high in June.
For the Bank of England, the takeaway is much the same.
Weak headline figures should keep policymakers on the sidelines, with all eyes now turning to tomorrow's inflation print.
8:30 am: Oil and bond yields rise as Middle East tensions rattle investors
London's FTSE 100 expectedly made a quiet start to this mid-August morning, with the blue-chip benchmark marking an 11 point gain to 10,732.
Global markets came under renewed pressure as Middle East tensions pushed oil and bond yields higher, reviving concerns over inflation and interest rates.
In the early commentary, interactive investor’s Richard Hunter said markets faced a “fresh round of aggressive rhetoric”, with oil touching $92 a barrel and the 30-year US Treasury yield reaching 5.3%, its highest since 2007.
The move complicated recent hopes that softer US data could keep the Federal Reserve on hold. Swissquote’s Ipek Ozkardeskaya said the dollar had become more sensitive to weakening economic numbers, though surging oil had provided fresh support.
She added that “the outlook is improving” for the euro as expectations diverge between the Fed and a more cautious ECB.
London opened cautiously, with BP and Shell benefiting from firmer crude while miners weakened. UK unemployment held at 4.9%, though vacancies fell to a five-year low, adding another wrinkle ahead of Wednesday’s inflation data.
6:25 am: UK blue-chips set for flat open as rising oil and inflation jitters weigh
The FTSE 100 looks set to open broadly flat as Asian shares mostly slipped overnight amid nagging inflation concerns.
Japan's Nikkei 225 led the retreat, falling 1.6%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite both shed 0.6% and 0.5% respectively.
Oil is once again the villain of the piece. Brent crude edged up to $91.08 a barrel in early trade, having jumped 2.7% on Monday, as the war in Iran keeps traders on edge over global supply.
For context, Brent has swung wildly between $72 and $102 over the past month alone.
That climb is rippling through bond markets, with the 10-year US Treasury yield rising to 4.72%, up sharply from just 3.97% before the conflict began.
Higher yields mean higher borrowing costs, and America's long-term mortgage rate has already crept close to a one-year high.
On Wall Street, stocks drifted further from last week's records, with the S&P 500 down 0.5% and the Dow shedding 272 points.
Analysts reckon strong earnings can only cushion the blow for so long. Plenty to mull over, then.
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