FTSE 100 Live: Fresh London IPOs, L&G in £2bn plan October 20, 2025 Good morning from the City AM liveblog team. Markets have opened, and here are some of the movements so far on the London Stock Exchange: As Rachel Reeves does her maths ahead of the 26 November Budget, she will hope that Labour’s policies have delivered enough growth to limit the number of tax hikes needed [...]
Government must increase financial education in order to boost investment, think tank warns October 20, 2025 The government must do more to encourage wealth building and increase financial knowledge as Brits continue to turn away from retail investing, a think tank has warned. According to the latest report from the Startup Coalition, only 50 per cent of adults invest in the stock market, leaving billions in low-yield accounts and cash ISAs, [...]
Reeves seeks to boost UK share ownership in ISA overhaul October 18, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves is looking to boost UK share ownership as part of her plans to overhaul ISAs, with potential measures including a minimum holding of British companies and a stamp duty tax break. The move is an evolution of the previously scrapped Conservative plan to create a ‘Brit ISA’ and comes as Reeves searches [...]
FTSE 100 Live: BBVA Sabadell bid falls through, tax rises in focus October 17, 2025 Good morning from the City AM liveblog team. Rachel Reeves isn’t going to introduce a Wealth Tax, but she is going to tax the wealthy. She isn’t going to impose austerity, but she is going to get spending under control. Confused? Speculation over the contents of next month’s Budget has reached fever pitch, and it’s [...]
IG pockets £75m after disposal of future exchange platform to beef up crypto capabilities October 16, 2025 Investment broker IG has disposed of its future exchange platform, Small Exchange Inc, as part of a partnership with global crypto exchange Kraken. IG sold the Chicago-based company, which it purchased in 2023, to Payward Inc., the parent company of popular cryptocurrency platform Kraken, for $100m (£74.9m). The sale consisted of $32.5m in cash and [...]
Merz calls for pan-European stock exchange October 16, 2025 Friedrich Merz has called for the creation of a pan-European stock exchange in a move that would help it compete with Asian and US counterparts and eclipse the liquidity offered on London’s ailing bourse. In an address to parliament in Berlin, the German Chancellor said European businesses need a “sufficiently broad and deep European capital [...]
British chipmaker Ensilica becomes latest victim of Jaguar Land Rover cyberattack October 16, 2025 British chipmaker Ensilica is thought to have become the latest supplier to Jaguar Land Rover to take a hit from the carmaker’s cyberattack, as the firm cut its supply expectations for the forthcoming year. The Oxford-based business saw its shares tumble on Thursday after it revised down its revenue expectations to £28-30m for the year [...]
FTSE 100 Live: GDP ‘stumbles’ to end of year, Premier Inn owner’s earnings dip October 16, 2025 Good morning from the City AM liveblog team. Amid all the doom and gloom, it was a moment to cheer for bankers in the Square Mile yesterday. Rules governing bonuses are getting relaxed, which could lead to a tastier payout come the new year. The new rules will allow part-payment of bonuses for the most [...]
Should we be worried about AI market concentration? October 16, 2025 An interesting statistic caught my eye this week on reading the IMF’s report into global financial stability. The report cited a decades-old measure known as the Herfindahl-Hirschman index. While hardly catchy, the Herfindahl-Hirschman index is a simple tool for assessing the dominance of certain players within the market. The higher the number, the greater the [...]
Reeves revives plan to cut cash ISA despite backlash October 15, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves is looking to use the looming Autumn Budget to kickstart plans for a major overhaul of tax-free ISAs, in a bid to get people’s cash savings into domestic stocks. The Chancellor is understood to be reviving a plan to cut the tax-free limit on cash ISAs, potentially halving it from £20,000 to [...]