{"id":374707,"date":"2025-08-26T10:38:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T10:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/374707\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T10:38:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T10:38:15","slug":"london-stocks-fall-as-concerns-about-us-feds-independence-resurface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/374707\/","title":{"rendered":"London stocks fall as concerns about US Fed’s independence resurface"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Reuters) -British equities fell on Tuesday, as global markets went into a risk-off mode after U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> said he was firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.<\/p>\n

The blue-chip FTSE 100 was down 0.6% by 0940 GMT, coming off its all-time highs and on track to snap a five-day winning streak.<\/p>\n

Risk assets around the world fell after Trump said he was firing Cook over alleged improprieties in obtaining mortgage loans. Cook said in a statement that the President has no authority to remove her, but Trump’s statement brought back concerns about the Fed’s independence.<\/p>\n

The pan-European STOXX 600 was last down 0.7% and U.S. stock index futures also indicated a weak open on Wall Street.<\/p>\n

In the UK, heavyweight banks weighed the most on the FTSE 100, down 1.7%. Top lenders HSBC and Standard Chartered slipped 1.8% and 3.1%, respectively.<\/p>\n

British 30-year government bond yields surged to their highest level since April 9, tracking a rise in U.S. Treasuries.<\/p>\n

UK’s domestically focussed FTSE 250 midcap index dropped 1.1%. Home improvement retailer Wickes languished at the bottom of the index with a 9.3% fall after Deutsche Bank downgraded its rating to “sell” from “hold”.<\/p>\n

Rival Kingfisher also lost 4.7% after Deutsche Bank cut its rating to “hold” from “buy”. Primark owner AB Foods dipped 4.6% after Deutsche Bank cut its rating on the stock to “sell”.<\/p>\n

On the flipside, business supplies distributor Bunzl jumped almost 4% after the company maintained its annual guidance and resumed a share buyback programme.<\/p>\n

A basket of precious metal miners gained 1.4% as gold prices climbed to a more than two-week high.<\/p>\n

Last week, the FTSE 100 briefly hit an all-time high after Fed Chair Jerome Powell signalled a possible interest rate cut at the Fed’s September meeting, pushing risk assets higher.<\/p>\n

Trading resumed on Tuesday after a UK bank holiday on Monday.<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Reuters) -British equities fell on Tuesday, as global markets went into a risk-off mode after U.S. President Donald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,57136,32,393,22668,4884,131000,257,131003,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-374707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-deutsche-bank","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-global-markets","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-lisa-cook","15":"tag-london","16":"tag-stock-index-futures","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115094638340392564","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}