The FTSE 100 fell sharply into the close on Friday as US President Donald Trump threatened China with a massive increase in tariffs amid a critical minerals dispute.<\/p>\n
The FTSE 100 index closed down 81.93 points, 0.9%, at 9,427.47. It had earlier traded as high as 9,519.96.<\/p>\n
The FTSE 250 ended 250.99 points lower, 1.1%, at 21,801.84, and the AIM All-Share fell 7.37 points, 0.9%, to 786.33.<\/p>\n
For the week, the FTSE 100 was down 0.7%, the FTSE 250 fell 1.8% and the AIM All-Share was down 1.3%.<\/p>\n
In European equities on Friday, the CAC 40 in Paris closed down 1.5%, as did the DAX 40 in Frankfurt.<\/p>\n
Stocks in New York were down sharply at the time of the London close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.2%, the S&P 500 was 1.6% lower while the Nasdaq Composite declined 2.2%.<\/p>\n
Stocks in London had struggled for impetus on Friday before Mr Trump\u2019s latest missive.<\/p>\n
Writing on Truth Social, the US president said China is becoming \u201cvery hostile\u201d and wants to impose export controls relating to \u201ceach and every\u201d element of production relating to rare earths.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump called the move \u201csurprising\u201d and said there is \u201cno way\u201d that China should be allowed to hold the world \u201ccaptive\u201d.<\/p>\n
The president said, depending on China\u2019s response, he will be forced to \u201cfinancially counter the move\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of tariffs on Chinese products\u201d coming into the US, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many other countermeasures that are, likewise, under serious consideration,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump said he saw \u201cno reason\u201d to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n
The comments sparked further falls in the oil price, and bonds, and put pressure on the dollar.<\/p>\n
The pound was quoted higher at 1.3338 US dollars at the time of the London equity market close on Friday, compared to 1.3305 dollars on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The euro stood at 1.1616 dollars compared to 1.1563 dollars. Against the yen, the dollar was trading at 151.87 yen, lower compared to 153.11 yen.<\/p>\n
The yield on the US 10-year Treasury was quoted at 4.07%, narrowed from 4.15% on Thursday. The yield on the US 30-year Treasury stood at 4.66%, down from 4.73%.<\/p>\n
Brent oil traded at 63.19 US dollars a barrel on Friday, down sharply from 65.95 dollars late on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Shell fell 2.9% while BP shed 2.8%.<\/p>\n
But gold, which had been trading back below 4,000 dollars perked up, trading at 4,014.76 dollars an ounce on Friday, still down against 4,020.10 dollars on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump\u2019s comments added to the uncertainty caused by the ongoing federal government shutdown in the US.<\/p>\n
Henry Allen, at Deustche Bank, said the fear is that the longer it lasts, the worse the economic impact will be, noting the Polymarket odds of the shutdown ending before October 15 are down to just 8%.<\/p>\n
Story Continues <\/p>\n
The shutdown is likely to see a delay to US inflation, retail sales and industrial production figures next week.<\/p>\n
On Friday, figures showed showed US consumer confidence was largely unmoved in October, according to preliminary data from the University of Michigan, showing little initial impact from the federal government shutdown.<\/p>\n
The index of consumer sentiment ebbed fractionally to 55 points in October, from 55.1 in September. On-year, it tumbled from 70.5.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, consumers perceive very few changes in the outlook for the economy from last month,\u201d the university said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPocketbook issues like high prices and weakening job prospects remain at the forefront of consumers\u2019 minds. At this time, consumers do not expect meaningful improvement in these factors.<\/p>\n
\u201cMeanwhile, interviews reveal little evidence that the ongoing federal government shutdown has moved consumers\u2019 views of the economy thus far.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oliver Allen, senior US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the lack of a \u201cmeaningful\u201d fall in the survey\u2019s headline index in October is \u201cencouraging\u201d, given that about half of the report\u2019s responses will have been taken since the government shutdown began.<\/p>\n
On London\u2019s FTSE 100, Compass Group rose 0.9% as Bank of America resumed coverage with a \u201cbuy\u201d rating.<\/p>\n
The broker expects the contract foodservice company to benefit from industry growth tailwinds, and outsized market share gains from first-time outsourcing and competition.<\/p>\n
The Bank of America pointed out Compass is gaining market share, not just from self-operated and regional players, but likely also from larger peers.<\/p>\n
Sage Group firmed 1.4% as Citi opened a \u201cpositive catalyst watch\u201d and reiterated a \u201cbuy\u201d rating ahead of full-year results in November.<\/p>\n
The broker noted the accountancy software provider\u2019s share price has been knocked by concerns of AI disruption.<\/p>\n
But Citi is confident that Sage has the \u201cright levers\u201d to sustain the growth, and potential to accelerate in a better macro set-up.<\/p>\n
\u201cAI would remain (a) key topic of debate, at the same time Sage efforts on bringing and commercialising AI use cases should be more visible in 2026,\u201d Citi said.<\/p>\n
On the FTSE 250, building materials outfit Ibstock fell 4.0% as it reported \u201cweaker than expected demand\u201d in the UK in recent months.<\/p>\n
Ibstock says a more uncertain near-term backdrop for its core construction markets has caused demand to be weaker than expected, hurting Clay and Concrete revenue during the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Both sales volumes and adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation are expected to be flat in the second half of 2025, showing no improvement from the first half.<\/p>\n
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were: Admiral, up 58p at 3,388p; Imperial Brands, up 49p at 3,143p; Unilever, up 64p at 4,485p; Sage Group, up 15.5 pence at 1,127.5p; and St James\u2019s Place, up 13.5p at 1,325p.<\/p>\n
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were: Entain, down 33.2p at 805p; Mondi, down 30.2p at 824.1p; Glencore, down 11.3p at 345.85p; Rightmove, down 21.8p at 675.8p; and Shell, down 80.5p at 2,696p.<\/p>\n
No major events are scheduled for Monday\u2019s global economic diary with financial markets closed in Canada and bond markets shut in the US. Later in the week, GDP and jobs market figures will be released in the UK and inflation data in China.<\/p>\n
Next week\u2019s UK corporate calendar has full-year results from housebuilder Bellway, and half-year results from premier Inn owner Whitbread.<\/p>\n
Contributed by Alliance News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The FTSE 100 fell sharply into the close on Friday as US President Donald Trump threatened China with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,1395,32,393,1880,53676,151474,4884,257,14015,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-488822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-ftse-100","14":"tag-ftse-250","15":"tag-government-shutdown","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-london","18":"tag-mr-trump","19":"tag-northern-ireland","20":"tag-scotland","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom","23":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115350944726179641","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488822","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=488822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}