- FTSE 100 closes 4.81 points higher at 10,748.16
- Wall Street headed for flat start
- JD Sports sounds earnings alarm
- Bitcoin has further to go
- BoE should extend its vacation
Close
After spending almost all of the session below the gain line, the Footsie flopped into the green in the last 40 minutes of the session to close 4.81 points higher at 10,748.16p.
3.00pm: Footsie drifts through a sleepy summer afternoon
The FTSE 100 was down just 11 points in afternoon trading, off its session low but going nowhere in particular, with light volumes and low conviction, the classic hallmarks of a mid-summer session.
The real action, as ever, was across the Atlantic. Wall Street slipped after President Trump vowed to squeeze Iran economically, sending oil prices higher and giving bond yields fresh reason to climb.
Brent crude topped $93 a barrel after Trump used Truth Social to promise an "economic D-Day" of unprecedented scale against Tehran.
Treasury yields rebounded too, ticking back up even after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's surprise move to buy more long-dated government debt.
Bitcoin, unbothered, surged more than 10% to touch $70,000 for the first time since June. And in the background, the US national debt quietly sailed past $40 trillion.
Plenty brewing abroad, then, while London traders keep one eye on the pub.
12.45pm: Stuck in the red zone
The FTSE 100 was nursing a 22-point loss on Thursday afternoon, though bulls will note it has clawed well up off its session low.
Blame the mood music drifting across the Atlantic, where a president spoiling for an economic fight and a Treasury quietly leaning on the bond market have left US futures in a muddle.
Dow futures slipped 0.1%, S&P 500 contracts hugged the flat line, and the Nasdaq-100 nudged 0.1% higher after Wednesday's clean sweep of gains.
The real drama sat in the plumbing.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stepped in to push down long-dated yields, complicating Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh's plan to let markets do some of his tightening for him.
The 10-year yield fell 5 basis points to 4.65% and the 30-year dropped 9 basis points to 5.19%.
Bitcoin liked it, surging more than 10% to touch $70,000 for the first time since early June.
All this as the US national debt sailed past $40 trillion.
Then there is Iran, with an exasperated President Trump promising an "economic D-Day" of unprecedented scale.
Plenty, then, for London traders to chew over as the afternoon wears on.
11.50am: The Bank of England's summer holiday could last until Christmas
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Fancy a quiet few months? So does Threadneedle Street, if UBS has read the runes correctly.
The Swiss bank reckons the Bank of England will sit on its hands for the rest of 2026, keeping rates firmly on hold no matter what the year throws at it.
Its rates strategists think traders betting on tightening by year-end have jumped the gun, and they would happily fade the wager.
The case for doing nothing is surprisingly tidy.
The Bank faces an inflationary supply shock, but with rates already at or above neutral and no accommodation to unwind, there is little reason to reach for the hammer.
The economy is limp yet oddly resilient, and there is scant evidence of inflation expectations running loose or wages catching fire.
Politics adds spice.
UBS says about 20 basis points of extra risk premium has been stuffed into gilts thanks to fiscal jitters, though it expects the mess to stay capped until the Autumn Budget, courtesy of Andy Burnham's pledge to honour the current fiscal rules.
So settle in. Threadneedle Street is closed for the season.
9.40am: What next for Bitcoin?
After the short squeeze, what next for Bitcoin? Well, traders are betting the cryptocurrency has further to run this month, but few see a return to six figures, according to prediction market Polymarket.
The market, which asks what price Bitcoin will hit in August and resolves on 1 September, put the odds of the token reaching $100,000 at just 1%.
The chance of touching $80,000 was priced at 5%, while $77,500 carried a 10% probability and $75,000 sat at 21%.
The most closely watched threshold, $72,500, was given a 46% chance, up 29 percentage points on the day, reflecting a sharp shift in sentiment.
The wager on $67,500 firmed to 59%, up nine points.
The repricing followed a sharp move higher. Bitcoin jumped nearly 8% on Wednesday to around $69,500, its highest level since early June and its steepest single-day climb since March.
The surge forced more than $1 billion in short-position liquidations in about an hour, the biggest wipeout of bearish bets in records dating back to 2021.
Traders had spent weeks pushing the token into the low $60,000s, leaving those betting on further declines badly exposed when the reversal came.
The rally drew fuel from a White House meeting with crypto executives and a Treasury move to expand bond buybacks, which lifted Ether and crypto-related equities alongside Bitcoin.
Whales added roughly $2.9 billion in Bitcoin over 60 days, Bloomberg reported, offering a genuine tailwind beyond the forced buying.
Caution remains, at this stage, the watchword. Bitcoin was still trading below its 200-day moving average near $69,900, a level chartists treat as the marker of an unconfirmed trend reversal.
Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have seen billions in net outflows across 2026, and the Fear and Greed Index remained in "fear" territory even as prices climbed.
With volume on the Polymarket contract topping $11 million, the crowd's verdict is clear: a strong August, but not a record-breaking one.
8.30am: JD tumbles
Blue-chip shares defied expectations to trade lower in the first half hour of the session, falling 25.95 points to 10,717.40.
The day's biggest corporate news was a profit warning from JD Sports, which wiped 11% from the value of the retailer.
“JD Sports’ fortunes were long overdue a break, but this update misses such an opportunity by a fair margin," said Richard Hunter, head of markets at interactive investor.
"Several profit warnings in the previous year put a lid on any share price appreciation, and this latest downgrade will do little to cheer investor spirits."
Slow start predicted
The FTSE 100 is tipped to nudge higher at Thursday's open, with spread betters pencilling in a gain of around 9 points.
The mood music comes courtesy of an overnight rally across Asia. Markets there took heart after the US Treasury said it would "at least double" its issuance of long-term bonds, a bid to cool borrowing costs that had spiked to near two-decade highs this week.
Wall Street clawed back its losses to close higher, the dollar slid, and traders exhaled. Seoul led Asia's charge, with the Kospi leaping more than 6% at one point as chipmaker SK hynix rocketed over 12% on the back of a $29 billion buyback.
Samsung added almost 9%. Gold, never one to miss a party, jumped back above $4,500 for the first time since early June.
Whether the calm holds is another matter, with oil creeping higher and US borrowing worries lingering.
Next week's Jackson Hole gathering may offer clues on Fed chief Kevin Warsh's rate thinking.
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