House prices expected to rise in 2026 after December dip January 8, 2026 UK house prices slipped slightly in December, as affordability issues and the fallout from the Autumn Budget dampened buyer appetite, but industry figures expect the market to pick up in 2026. House prices fell 0.6 per cent in the final month of 2025, bringing prices down by a further £1,789, following a 0.1 per cent [...]
Associated British Foods shares slide after Primark sales slump January 8, 2026 Shares in Associated British Foods (ABF), the owner of Primark, tumbled in early trading on Thursday morning after the FTSE 100 giant warned of a “difficult trading environment” and downgraded the fashion retailer’s growth forecasts. ABF, which owns the chain alongside its wholesale food business, said like-for-like sales across continental Europe declined as much as [...]
Manchester United head coach’s job is to be a fall guy and human shield January 8, 2026 AI is the scourge of the modern employment market. Applicants generate automated covering letters that tick off every requirement in a job spec, and are then interviewed by robots which provide almost instantaneous rejections. Reluctant to be a Luddite in this mind-scrambling new world, here is my open letter to Sir Jim Ratcliffe applying to [...]
FTSE 100 Live: Supermarket shares fall in trolley wars; M&S rises amid cyber recovery January 8, 2026 Good morning and welcome back to the City AM liveblog. The FTSE 100’s rally came crashing down yesterday as steep losses across commodities dragged the index into the red. Whilst one shouldn’t fret too much with the index still holding firm above its latest milestone, Wednesday’s 0.7 per cent drop still wiped over 70 points [...]
Labour MP Callum Anderson: Securing Starmer’s visit to London Stock Exchange took months January 8, 2026 We dig into the memory bank of the City's great and good. Today, it's Labour MP and former London Stock Exchange adviser Callum Anderson.
Star stockpicker Nick Train buys more shares in his Finsbury Growth trust January 8, 2026 Star fund manager Nick Train has ploughed over £200,000 into his struggling Finsbury Growth and Income Trust, in a further show of support for the 100-year-old trust’s investment strategy just weeks before a crunch continuation vote to mark its centenary. Train, who has managed the £1.3bn trust’s portfolio since 2000, bought 25,000 shares in the [...]
Rent control law to ‘knock £11bn’ off commercial property January 8, 2026 New legislation introducing rent controls could lead to £11bn being stripped from commercial property values, fresh analysis has shown, in the latest blow to the confidence for investors. The government is proposing a ban on upward-only rent hikes on commercial property in a bid to support small businesses with costs. The proposed ban can be [...]
Don’t buy into the negativity. Here’s why I’m optimistic for the UK economy January 8, 2026 the UK economy has been lost in a sea of headlines about its impending decline. Bob Wigley says he's done with the doom and gloomerism.
Are we facing an AI jobs apocalypse? January 8, 2026 Police in Cornwall are on the hunt for a masked vandal seen on CCTV spraying “AI will take our jobs” across multiple sites in the villages of Polbathic, Widegates and Crafthole. Is this vigilante right to warn us all? Ask Chat GPT whether AI will lead to a jobs apocalypse and the answer is suspiciously [...]
Mark Kleinman: What’s in store for the Square Mile in 2026? January 8, 2026 Mark Kleinman is Sky News’ City Editor and the man who gets the Square Mile talking in his weekly City AM column Not great, not awful: a fair summary of my corporate predictions for 2025. On the plus side, I was right to forecast a bid for ITV, or at least part of it, and correct that Thames [...]