Wetherspoon shares sink after business rates knock profit January 21, 2026 Wetherspoon shares slumped on Wednesday after the pub giant laid bare the scale of the financial hit from November’s tax-raising Budget. The FTSE 250 member said cost rises across energy, wages, repairs and business rates had put up costs by a staggering £45m in the 25 weeks to mid-January. That would imply a cost rise [...]
UK inflation overshoots forecasts in cost of living warning January 21, 2026 Inflation overshot forecasts pencilled in by economists, sending the Bank of England a warning on their steady pace of interest rate cuts. New data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has shown consumer price index (CPI) inflation, the headline measure for price growth, hitting 3.4 per cent in the year to December. Economists [...]
FTSE 100 Live: Trump to rock davos; Stocks dip after inflation January 21, 2026 Good morning and welcome back to the City AM liveblog. Inflation spiked above expectations this morning, coming in at 3.4 per cent, according to fresh figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This soared above a poll of economists by Bloomberg expecting 3.3 per cent. “Inflation ticked up a little in December, driven partly [...]
With not much else to offer, Reeves pitches ‘stable’ UK to Davos elite January 21, 2026 The Canadian PM and former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, told an audience at Davos yesterday that “the old order is not coming back,” and that “there’s been a rupture in the world.” He said the structures we took for granted have been replaced by “a system of intensifying great power rivalry [...]
Why the most expensive inefficiency on a City trading desk is the one nobody measures January 21, 2026 At a time when geopolitics can be completely upended over the weekend, trades that have been agreed on a Friday but aren’t booked ’til Monday have become one of the biggest vulnerabilities in a desk’s profit and loss swing, says Oliver Blower Since the dawn of time, City trading desks have prided themselves on their [...]
Andrew Bailey: Muted response to Trump does not bring ‘assurance’ January 20, 2026 Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey said the “muted” market response to President Trump’s latest tariff threats did not bring any assurance over global financial stability. Bailey on Tuesday morning suggested that President Trump’s tariffs on the UK and major European economies would not be a “trigger” for a financial breakdown. During a Treasury Committee [...]
2026 could be crisis year for UK’s graduate workforce January 20, 2026 This year could become a graduate abyss for the UK job market if AI skill shortages are not tackled, writes Rod Flavell.
GSK to acquire US biotech group for $2.2bn January 20, 2026 FTSE 100 giant GSK has reached an agreement to acquire US based biotech group Rapt Therapeutics. The deal values the company, which develops therapies for treating people with inflammatory and immunologic diseases, at $2.2bn (£1.6bn), and marks the first major deal for new GSK chief executive Luke Miels, coming just weeks after he took charge [...]
FTSE 100 and Wall St sink as EU and Trump war of words heats up January 20, 2026 The war of words between the Trump administration and Europe ramped up on Tuesday as world leaders headed for a showdown in Davos whilst global markets sunk into the red. Ursula Von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said the tariffs imposed on European nations due to their staunch defence of Greenland’s sovereignty [...]
Basel 3.1: New rules will make UK banking more resilient January 20, 2026 The implementation of Basel rules in the UK, published today,marks a major step forward for the banking sector, writes David Bailey.