Newsflash: Britain’s blue-chip stock index has risen through the 9,000 point mark to hit a new record high.The FTSE 100 share index hit 9,016.98 points at the start of trading in London, up around 0.2% today, taking its gains during 2025 to over 10%.That’s a new intraday high for the “Footsie” (as it is known in City circles).

As covered in the introduction, the London stock market has benefitted from a range of factors this year, including a move by some investors to diversify away from the US stock market due to concerns over Donald Trump’s economic policies,The Trump trade war has also helped UK stocks, as Britain is one of the few countries to have reached a trade deal guaranteeing lower tariffs,Time to wrap up…,Britain’s blue-chip stock index has risen through the 9,000-point mark to touch a new high today, before falling back,The FTSE 100 share index hit 9,016.

98 points in early trading on Tuesday, taking its gains during 2025 to more than 10%,Analysts said the London stock market had benefited from a range of factors this year, including a move by some investors to diversify away from US shares because of concerns about Donald Trump’s economic policies,The US president’s trade war has also helped UK stocks, as Britain is one of the few countries to have reached a trade deal guaranteeing lower tariffsInflation shot up in June as the impacts of Donald Trump’s tariffs slowly started to show in US prices,Business leaders have said for months that the high, volatile rates of Trump’s tariffs will force companies to raise consumer prices,Prices remained stable in the spring, particularly as many of Trump’s highest tariffs were paused; however, they started increasing in May and have continued to rise in June.

Annual inflation rose to 2.7% in June, up from 2.4% in May, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which tracks the prices of a basket of goods and services each month.Core CPI, which leaves out energy and food prices, ticked up slightly to 2.9%, compared with 2.

8% in May.The prices of appliances, furniture and toys, products typically manufactured outside the US, all rose.Food prices increased by 3%, with the price of beef rising by more than 2% over the month, coffee up 2.2% and citrus fruit prices rising 2.3%.

While the price of eggs has been dropping over the last few months, a dozen eggs are still 27% more expensive than last year…China’s economy grew more strongly than expected in the second quarter as it proved resilient in the face of Donald Trump’s trade war.China’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 5.2% in April to June compared with a year earlier, slowing from 5.4% in the first quarter, but just ahead of analysts’ expectations for a rise of 5.1%.

Rachel Reeves has unveiled a package of City changes meant to cut “unnecessary” red tape and encourage more financial risk-taking by companies and consumers in the hopes of spurring economic growth,In a financial services strategy dubbed the Leeds Reforms, the chancellor outlined initiatives designed to boost the financial services sector, including plans to cut “unnecessary costs” related to accountability rules for senior bankers, and to launch an advertising campaign to get consumers investing cash savings in stocks,Thames Water has said it could collapse into temporary nationalisation if emergency talks with creditors fail, as it slumped to a £1,6bn annual loss,The loss for the 12 months to 31 March comes after a profit of £154m the previous year, even though revenues climbed by 8.

7% to £2.7bn.It had net debt of £16.8bn, up from £15.2bn the year before.

Thames’ top management were also warned they could be held in contempt of Parliament if they continue to refuse to hand over board minutes related to the takeover approach from KKR, which collapsed last month.The Footsie’s historic day has ended with a whimper, not a bang.After breaching the tape on the 9,000-point mark in early trading, the FTSE 100 has slipped back during the day.The index of blue-chip shares has just closed down almost 60 points, or 0.66%, at 8938 points, after the jump in US inflation dampened hopes of early interest rate cuts in America.

That’s lower than yesterday’s closing high of 8998 points, as well as (obviously) lower than the new intraday high of 9016.98 points set this morning.But the mood in the City is still upbeat.Here’s Neil Wilson, UK investor strategist at Saxo:Overall, I’d say the FTSE has attraction from a value, income and defensive perspective given the volatility we have seen and changed macro backdrop and assumptions about US exceptionalism.a) it’s offering some relative shelter with defensive names,b) benefitting from flow dynamics as investors look beyond the US,c) is enticing value-focused investors with relatively low multiples when growth is at a premium,d) offers a good dividend income yield ande) may be picking up a little juice from the government’s capital investment plans for defence/energy/houses.

10,000 here we come.The US dollar has pushed higher since June’s inflation report was released.The dollar index is now up almost 0.5% against a basket of currencies, probably a sign that hopes of early US interest rates cuts have been hit by the jump in the CPI rate last month.This has pushed the pound down by a third of a cent, to $1.

339.Stocks are now lower on Wall Street too, where the Dow Jones industrial average is down 248 points or 0.56% at 44,210.Bank of England interest rate-setter Catherine Mann has said today that UK inflation pressures remained a challenge despite a fall in the pace of pay growth in recent months, Reuters reports.Mann, usually one of the hawkish members of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, told Business in Wales:“We have seen wage rates come down, so people are getting wage increases, but not at the rate in the past.

“And we’ve seen price inflation come down quite a bit, but it’s still a challenge because it’s still well above our 2% objective,”We get the next UK inflation report tomorrow morning, followed by new labour market statistics on Thursday…,Donald Trump has repeated his call for sharp cuts to US interest rates,Posting on his Truth Social account, he says:Fed should cut Rates by 3 Points,Very Low Inflation.

One Trillion Dollars a year would be saved!!!A three percentage point cut to the Fed Funds rate, as Trump calls for, would lower the Fed’s target rate from 4,25%-4,5% to 1,25%-1,5%.

That would be a truly dramatic move for a central bank that likes to move in quarter-point or half-point change (when it moves at all!).For example, in the run-up to the financial crisis the Fed lowered the Federal Funds rate from 4.5% at the end of 2007 to 2% at the start of September 2008.Following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it accelerated its cuts, and brought the target rate down to 0 to 25 basis points by the end of the year.Digging into the US inflation report, there are some indications that imported goods prices jumped in June.

In food, for example, the cost of ‘oranges including tangerines’ rose by 4.7% in June.Instant coffee prices were up 5.1% in the monthAnd among goods, nonelectric cookware and tableware prices rose 4.0% in June, with Audio equipment 2.

9% more expensive.You can see the jump in inflation in June.Some key imports are starting to spike in price.Price hikes in June alone:Durable goods +0.5% Linens +5.

9%Oranges +4,7%Olives +4,4%Cookware +4%Audio equipment +2,9%Major appliances +2,4%Coffee +2.

2%Sports equipment +1.8%… pic.twitter.com/PHZCXwAD4zDing ding! The opening bell of Wall Street has been rung, and shares are moving higher despite today’s rise in US inflation.The S&P 500 share index has risen by 32 points, or 0.

5% to 6,300 at the start of trading, although the narrower Dow Jones industrial average is only 0.02% higher.The tech-focused Nasdaq index is up almost 1%.Investors seem relieved that core inflation rose by less than expected in June (although the annual rate of core CPI did rise, to 2.9% from 2.

8%.Scott Helfstein, Global X‘s head of investment strategy, says:This is kind of a perfect inflation report for the Fed, just hot enough to justify their policy of holding rates steady, but not reflective of runaway prices.The question now is whether the labor market holds up throughout summer, and it probably will.If we see strong corporate earnings for the second quarter, growth forecasts for the US may be revised higher.The financial markets are treating the US inflation report as ‘benign’, reports Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB:A small recalibration lower in expectations of a Fed rate cut in September, there is now a 59% chance; down from 60%.

Bond yields are lower, as the us is following European bond yields lower.The market is taking this CPI report as benign, no hindrance to rate cuts.@XTBUKThe dollar index spiked to an intra day high on the back of the inflation data, but has immediately backed away.Us stock index futures are still pointing to a higher open.In the pre market, Nvidia is surging while JPMorgan is lower, and Citigroup is modestly higher.

@XTBUKToday’s June US inflation report revealed early signs of tariff-led price increases, though not yet large enough to meaningfully move the headline, reports Atakan Bakiskan, US economist at Berenberg:With more tariff damage ahead, the Fed will certainly not feel content with today’s report, especially as core goods excluding used cars rose 0.3% mom in June -- the highest monthly increase since March 2023.Thames Water’s CEO has confirmed the company appealed to the government to let the company off up to £1bn in fines to avoid special administration.This was previously revealed by my colleagues Anna Isaac and John Collingridge, but now it has been confirmed by the CEO.Chris Weston told the Efra committee this morning that ministers and the regulators need to have a “recognition of the reality of the situation”, namely that they can’t both pay fines for polluting waterways with sewage and financially turn around the company.

He added:We have talked to Ofwat about it, we have talked to the Environment Agency about it and we have talked to Defra about it,Chair of Thames Sir Adrian Montague added that they had been talking to the Treasury about the issue,The Treasury is reportedly pressuring Defra to avoid special administration because of an upfront cost of over £3bn,Weston claimed that this does not mean Thames is asking for “special circumstances” even though other companies are expected to pay their environmental fines,He added:I don’t think we are pleading special circumstances just for Thames