House prices edge higher amid Budget speculation October 31, 2025 UK house prices rose for a second consecutive month, as buyers remained resilient amid growing tax rise speculation in the upcoming Autumn Budget. The average value of a house increased 0.3 per cent to £272,226 in October, according to Nationwide’s latest housing pricing index. House prices were 2.4 per cent higher than last year, following [...]
Apple and Amazon defy Wall Street gloom on iPhone and cloud sales October 31, 2025 Tech behemoths Apple and Amazon have defied expectations with results that outshone Wall Street forecasts, rounding off a big week of earnings from the world’s most powerful firms. Both companies posted double-digit revenue growth and upbeat outlooks, calming investor nerves after a rocky few days for the wider tech sector. While Apple reported a surge [...]
MHA set to deliver double-digit revenue growth as strategy pays off October 31, 2025 Listed professional services group MHA has revealed that its first half 2026 revenue is expected to jump around 13 per cent from the same period last year, as it remains on track to meet full-year market expectations. In a trading update on Friday morning, the firm said revenue for the six months ended 30 September [...]
World Rugby Nations Championship silence is deafening but predictable October 31, 2025 The World Rugby Nations Championship starts next year after the last ever autumn internationals campaign this year. Or does it? This is the last ever autumn rugby union series, not that you’d have any idea. Gone will be the days of friendly matches on chilly November evenings and in will come games with a trophy [...]
Motor finance, Madoff fraud, tax fears – bank shares defy the noise October 31, 2025 A motor finance battle, hefty impairment charges and the shadow of 2008 all cast over banks third-quarter results but beneath the fog investors are rewarding the FTSE 100’s top lenders for another bumper quarter. The FTSE 350 banks index has risen nearly four per cent this month and is up 17 per cent for the [...]
Roll-on the World Cup! Spain’s young guns sign deal with Old Spice October 30, 2025 Not so long ago Old Spice was a punchline; a brand associated with a bygone era and reliant on an ageing – not to say, perishing – demographic. More recently it has tried to shake off this stuffy image, leaning into sports such as the NFL. This week made perhaps its most intriguing move yet: [...]
Will the Autumn Budget push up inflation? October 30, 2025 For a few weeks, there was one thing Rachel Reeves appeared to speak about more than anything else: inflation. Earlier this month, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirmed inflation hit 3.8 per cent in the year to September, nearly double the Bank of England’s target rate. The IMF and the OECD said the UK [...]
Big Tech earnings: Investors reward AI returns, punish spending spree October 30, 2025 Wall Street was shaken up by Silicon Valley heavyweights overnight as a trio of Big Techs laid bare the cost of their AI strategies. Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft all reported earnings after the bell on Wednesday, offering investors a glimpse into the now trillion-dollar race to lead the AI boom. But, while Alphabet, Google’s parent [...]
Starmer reprimands Reeves for ‘inadvertent failure’ over rental licence mishap October 30, 2025 Sir Keir Starmer has sent a sharply worded email to Rachel Reeves criticising the Chancellor for misleading suggestions that she did not know she needed a licence to rent out her family home. Reeves has had to backtrack from earlier suggestions that she and her husband had not been aware of the Southwark Council rental [...]
New Principality Stadium naming rights deal ‘challenging’, says former negotiator October 30, 2025 The timing of a new deal for the naming rights of Cardiff’s Principality Stadium has been described as “challenging for Welsh rugby” given the state of the game across the River Severn. The 73,931-capacity stadium on the banks of the Taff is the fourth largest in the UK and plays host to the Wales rugby [...]