UK house prices ‘drop unexpectedly in December’; Lidl’s Christmas sales surpass £1bn – business live

House prices faltered slightly in December, but overall the UK’s property market was resilient in 2025, Nationwide says.Robert Gardner said:Despite the softer end to the year, the word that best describes the housing market in 2025 overall is ‘resilient’. Even though consumer sentiment was relatively subdued, with households reluctant to spend and mortgage rates around three times their post pandemic lows, mortgage approvals remained near pre-Covid levels.Stamp duty changes that took effect at the beginning of April created volatility through the spring and summer. Activity spiked in March as purchasers brought forward transactions to avoid paying additional tax and this led to some softness in the following months

Mini-revival of London stock market listings is relief to Rachel Reeves | Nils Pratley

It wasn’t quite a downpour after the drought, but the weather changed for stock market listings in London during the course of 2025. The first half of the year was properly parched as President Trump’s tariff agenda upset everything: fundraisings from flotations, or initial public offerings (IPOs), were the lowest in a miserable run that started in 2022. But data from Dealogic show there was a notable pick-up in activity in the second half, albeit still billions away from that of 2021, the last strong year.The mini-revival will have come as a relief for both the London Stock Exchange and Rachel Reeves. For the former, the dearth of new listings – as opposed to fundraisings by companies already on the exchange – has become an embarrassment in recent years, especially after London failed to land Arm Holdings in 2023

Apple reportedly cuts production of Vision Pro headset after poor sales

Poor sales have reportedly forced Apple to cut production of the Vision Pro headset that it had hoped would herald a new era in “spatial computing”.The tech company also reduced marketing for Vision Pro by more than 95% last year, according to the market intelligence group Sensor Tower in figures first reported by the Financial Times.Apple continues to sell iPhones, iPads and laptops in the millions each quarter, but analysts say sales of Vision Pro headsets, which cost at least £3,199 ($3,499) each, have been sluggish.Apple has not released sales figures for the device, but the market research group International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates it will have sold only 45,000 in the last quarter of last year.IDC said Apple’s Chinese producer, Luxshare, had stopped production of the headset at the start of 2025, and Apple has not expanded direct sales beyond a select 13 countries

‘They sowed chaos to no avail’: the lasting legacy of Elon Musk’s Doge

The billionaire – who had no government experience – left various federal agencies in disarray while overseeing an ‘efficiency’ drive across WashingtonAs Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, splurged more than $250m on Donald Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign, the US president commissioned his new ally to oversee a sweeping “efficiency” drive across the federal government.The Tesla and SpaceX boss, who had no experience inside government, was tasked with eradicating waste and cutting spending as part of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) – and was quick to stoke expectations.“I think we can do at least $2tn,” Musk declared of the potential savings during a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City a week before Trump’s re-election.Following Trump’s return to office in January, these ambitious plans were swiftly on a collision course with reality. Tens of thousands of federal workers were fired, leaving agencies in disarray and triggering myriad legal challenges

Chess: Magnus Carlsen wins two more world speed crowns despite mishaps

The world No 1, Magnus Carlsen, recovered from a series of mishaps to win both the World Rapid and Blitz crowns at Doha, Qatar, last weekend. The global victories were the 19th and 20th of the Norwegian’s illustrious career and may give him the edge in the longstanding debate on whether he, Garry Kasparov, or Bobby Fischer is chess’s all-time greatest master.Peerless endgame technique was central to the 35-year-old Norwegian’s blitz success. He won a knight ending with Black against Nodirbek Abdusattorov from a position which elite grandmasters would normally have instantly agreed to halve, and also scored in other endings of extraordinary subtlety.In between the moments of sublime elegance, there were some episodes which threatened to derail Carlsen’s campaign

Usman Khawaja’s retirement farewell shows how cricket can be an expression of character | Gideon Haigh

There is no gainsaying Usman Khawaja’s significance as an Australian Test cricketer; an additional mark of his stature is that he almost made you take him for granted.Think on it for a moment, and run your eye up and down the palely conventional list of Australia’s highest Test scorers, where he ranks 15th, between Mike Hussey and Neil Harvey – so various in methods yet so similar in origins. There was a recognition through the 1990s and into the 21st century that the face of Australia was being changed by immigration, while the face of Australian cricket remained eerily unaltered. Then, all of a sudden, 15 years ago, Khawaja’s darkly slim figure emerged from the shadows of the Sydney Cricket Ground to pull his first Test delivery for four, and the axis of the game tilted ever so slightly.Yet he wasn’t there for looks