London hits fresh high as UK inflation fall increases odds of March interest rate cut

Uber Technologies (UBER) said it would invest more than $100m to develop autonomous vehicle charging ‌hubs, underscoring the ride-hailing company’s latest push to scale ‌up self-driving operations.

The move includes building DC fast charging stations at its autonomous depots ​where Uber runs day-to-day fleet operations, and at pit stops throughout priority cities.

Uber has made autonomous vehicles a key strategic priority, partnering with more than 20 firms across the world on self-driving freight, delivery ‌and taxi services, as ⁠it races to secure market share and fight competition from companies such as Tesla.

The charging expansion will ⁠begin in the US in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and Dallas before moving to more cities over time.

The company is also partnering ​with chargepoint ​operators in global markets to ​set up “utilization guarantee agreements”, including ‌with EVgo in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston, Electra in Paris and Madrid, and Hubber and Ionity in London.

These agreements are expected to support the rollout of hundreds of new chargers across these cities, and in places where charging is needed ‌the most.

Gold prices remained below the $5,000 threshold on Wednesday as investors awaited the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s January meeting for further guidance on the outlook for US interest rates.

Gold futures (GC=F) rose 0.8% to $4,949.60 a troy ounce, while spot prices were muted at $4,930.63 at the time of writing, after hitting $4,862 per ounce in the previous session, its lowest level in more than a week.

“Gold prices are taking support above $4,850 today… this is a technical bounce” after prices fell in the previous session on easing geopolitical tensions”, Ajay Kedia, director at Kedia Commodities told Reuters. Investors are looking out for Fed’s January minutes, he added.

Markets are also focused on the US personal consumption expenditures report for December, due on Friday, which is expected to provide further clues on the direction of rates this year. Markets currently expect the Fed to cut rates in June. Non-yielding bullion typically benefits from lower interest rate environments.

Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee said on Tuesday that the central bank could approve “several more” rate cuts this year if inflation resumes its decline towards the 2% target.

However, Fed governor Michael Barr said another rate cut could come somewhere well down the road, citing ongoing risks to the US inflation outlook.

“I expect rallies to remain capped and bulls to support sell-offs, which should keep gold ranging between $4,700-$5,100 over the near term,” said Matt Simpson, a senior analyst at StoneX.

Energy bills are set to fall in April, according to consultancy Cornwall Insight, after Rachel Reeves slashed the policy costs paid for through bills.

The Guardian has the details…

Cornwall has predicted that bills will tumble by an average of almost £117 a year from April, following the Chancellor’s decision to shift the levies used to support renewable energy projects into general taxation, and scrap a bill payer funded energy efficiency scheme.

As Reeves said this morning, this will knock £150 off bills.

And Cornwall now estimate that the price cap will fall to an average of £1,641 a year for a typical dual fuel household from April, down from £1,758 a year at present.

That will help push down inflation in April, which is why the Bank of England expects CPI to drop to its 2% target.

Average private rents increased 3.5% to £1,367 per month in the 12 months to January, down from 4% in December 2025, the ONS has revealed.

Average rents increased by 3.5% in England, 5.8% in Wales, 2.6% in Scotland, and 5.6% in Northern Ireland.

Within England, private rents annual inflation was highest in the North East (8.0%), and lowest in London (1.1%), in the year to January.

It comes as annual house price inflation slowed to 2.4% in the year to December 2025, down from 2.8% in November.

Prices fell by 4.6% for inner London boroughs in December, Bloomberg reported, the biggest drop since the global financial crisis.

ONS data shows that average house prices fell by 14.8% annually in the City of Westminster, by 11.5% in Kensington and Chelsea, and by 11.1% in Camden, the three most expensive parts of London.

House prices also fell 9.5% annually in Hammersmith and Fulham by 10.9% in Tower Hamlets.

Here are the top FTSE risers and fallers this morning:

New data has shown that RationalFX compiled layoff data from multiple verified sources, including U.S. WARN notices, TrueUp, TechCrunch, and the Layoffs.fyi tracker, covering announcements made since the start of 2026.one single company: Amazon (AMZN).

The US tech giant announced 16,000 cuts in early 2026, following 14,000 roles shed in October 2025. That earlier round made Amazon the second-largest contributor to global tech layoffs in 2025, with a total of 19,555, just behind Nvidia’s (NVDA) 33,900 job cuts.

RationalFX has compiled layoff data from multiple sources, including US WARN notices, TrueUp, TechCrunch, and the Layoffs.fyi tracker, covering announcements made since the start of 2026.

Here are the companies with the most tech layoffs so far in 2026:

Amazon – 16,000 layoffs

ams OSRAM – 2,000 layoffs

Ericsson – 1,900 layoffs

ASML – 1,700 layoffs

Meta – 1,500 layoffs

Block – 1,100 layoffs

Autodesk – 1,000 layoffs

Salesforce – 1,000 layoffs

Ocado – 1,000 layoffs

Pinterest – 677 layoffs

Chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) announced an expanded multiyear strategic partnership with Facebook-parent Meta (META) on Tuesday.

The agreement will see Nvidia provide Meta with millions of its Blackwell and Rubin GPUs [graphics processing units], as well as its CPUs [central processing units] and networking offerings.

The plan calls for Meta to use the products within its data centres for both training and running AI models.

Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said that Meta had handed Nvidia “a massive vote of confidence”, adding that “this is about as close to a full endorsement as it gets in the AI arms race”.

“No dollar figure was given, and the real benefits will likely pull through in 2027 and beyond,” he said. “But with Meta’s AI capex budget at up to $135bn (£99.5bn) this year alone, this multi-year commitment is likely worth tens, potentially hundreds, of billions of dollars.”

Nvidia shares were up 1.8% at the time of writing in pre-market trading on Wednesday, while Meta’s stock climbed nearly 1%.

European Central Bank (ECB) president Christine Lagarde is planning to leave her job early, ahead of next year’s French presidential election, giving outgoing French leader Emmanuel Macron an input into picking her successor, the Financial Times ‌reported.

Lagarde’s term is due to end in October next year, but some fear that the far right may win ‌the French presidential race in the spring of 2027, complicating the selection for the new leader of Europe’s most important financial institution.

The FT on Wednesday that said Lagarde has not yet decided on the exact timing of her departure but was keen on Macron and German chancellor Friedrich Merz to be the key deciders in who succeeds her. It comes as Macron is not able to run again for a third term.

“President Lagarde is totally focused on her mission and has not taken any decision regarding the end of her term,” an ECB spokesperson said.

BAE Systems (BA.L) has set new records with its annual results amid a ramping-up in global defence spending as geopolitical uncertainty remains heightened.

In preliminary results, released on Wednesday morning, Europe’s biggest defence contractor reported better-than-expected underlying earnings before interest and taxes of £3.32bn for 2025, up 12% on the previous year, as sales jumped 10% to a record high of £30.66bn.

Underlying EPS increased 12% to 75.2p and for the year ahead, BAE said it expected sales to increase 7% to 9% on this year’s figure and forecast 9% to 11% growth in underlying EPS.

The aerospace and weapons manufacturer said its order backlog also hit a record £83.6 billion as of the end of December while its order intake stood at £36.8 billion.

Chief executive Charles Woodburn said:

The firm forecast further growth in 2026, albeit at a slower pace, with the firm pencilling in underlying earnings growth of between 9% to 11% and sales to rise by between 7% and 9%.

Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said:

The chances of an interest rate cut from Threadneedle Street next month have risen this morning. Money markets are now indicating that a quarter-point rate cut is an 81.5% chance, up from 77% last night, and from around 65% last week.

Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, said:

Meanwhile, TUC general secretary Paul Nowak urged the Bank to act fast:

In response to today’s inflation data, chancellor Rachel Reeves, said:

However, Sir Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said:

UK inflation fell to 3% in January from 3.4% in December, bolstering expectations that the Bank of England (BoE) could move to cut interest rates as early as March.

The slowdown marks the lowest annual reading since March last year, when prices were rising at a rate of 2.6%. Inflation has been edging back towards the government’s 2% target after a brief resurgence at the end of 2025.

While the headline rate has fallen, prices are still increasing, albeit at a slower pace. The decline reflects easing price pressures rather than outright falls in the cost of living.

December’s uptick had been attributed to seasonal factors, including higher airfares over Christmas and an increase in tobacco duty announced in the autumn budget.

Grant Fitzner, chief economist at the Office for National Statistics, said:

Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, fell to 3.1% last month, down from 3.2% in December.

Meanwhile, services inflation, which is closely watched by the BoE when setting interest rates, fell to 4.4% in January. This marks a drop from 4.5% a month earlier.

Asian equity markets are higher this morning but with still low volumes due to the closure of markets in mainland China, South Korea, and Hong Kong.

Japanese stocks are recovering from losses incurred earlier this week, with the Nikkei (^N225) trading 1% higher.

On Wall Street, stocks remained little changed on the first day of trading this week, following Monday’s bank holiday, as investors await the minutes from January’s Federal Reserve meeting.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC), the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) all climbed about 0.1%

Volatility re-emerged across AI linked equities, with the VIX at one point nudging up towards YTD highs (just shy of 23).

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (-0.02%) recovered from being down more than -2.5% intraday, the software & services (-1.59%) segment still led the declines within the S&P 500.

Some defensive sectors also struggled, with consumer staples down -1.51% as Walmart (WMT) fell -3.76% from what had been a 20% gain year-to-date. Volatility was also evident across other high profile 2026 themes, with Brent crude (BZ=F), gold (GC=F) and Bitcoin (BTC-USD) all ending weaker, in part thanks to cautiously upbeat comments out of US-Iran talks.

Good morning, and welcome back to our markets live blog. As usual we will be taking a deep dive into what’s moving markets, and happening across the global economy.

Looking ahead, upcoming data include US January industrial production, capacity utilisation, the leading index and December durable goods orders. Elsewhere, UK January CPI, RPI and PPI data are due, alongside Canada’s January existing home sales.

Central bank events include the release of the FOMC meeting minutes and speeches from ECB members Villeroy and Schnabel.

Notable earnings include Analog Devices and Booking, while the US Treasury will auction $16bn of 20 year bonds.

Here’s a snapshot of what’s on the agenda for today:

7am: Trading updates: Glencore, BAE Systems

7am: UK inflation report for January

9.30am: UK house prices and rents data for December

1.30pm: US housing starts and building permits data

1.30pm: US durable goods orders