Key events
UK and other government bond yields soar on Middle East
UK and other government borrowing costs have risen sharply today, as traders reassess the outlook for inflation and interest rates on the back of Middle East developments.
Bond yields are continuing to climb, with the yield (or interest rate) on the UK’s 10-year gilt rising 10 basis points earlier. It is now up nearly 9bps at 4.94%. The equivalent German Bund yield has also risen 9bps.
This is the benchmark gilt’s biggest one-day move since mid-May, after Donald Trump said that the US ceasefire agreement with Iran is “over”.
This triggered a 6%-plus jump in the oil price, and could lead to higher inflation, which in turn could lead to higher interest rates.
Traders are betting on a quarter-point rate hike from the Bank of England by the end of the year, which would take its base rate to 4% from 3.75% at present. They see a 50% chance of a hike by September, and a near-80% chance of a move by December.
Yields are rising across the gilt curve, with 20-year bond yields 8bps higher while the 30-year is up 7bps.
The UK online trading platform IG Group wants to set up a new group holding company in Jersey as part of a strategic overhaul.
The FTSE 10o company’s Jersey plan reflects its shift away from its British roots, with two-thirds of revenues now coming from outside hte UK.
IG posted an 18% increase in revenues in the first half of the year, as active customer numbers climbed 66%.
Port of Dover faces ‘utter chaos’ under struggling EU entry system, MPs warn
On the travel front, cross-Channel ferry passengers and the port of Dover face “utter chaos and miles of tailbacks” under the EU’s entry/exit system (EES) unless the technology is fixed or checks suspended by next week, MPs have warned.
The home affairs select committee chair, Karen Bradley, urged the government to “apply maximum pressure” on the French authorities to act on the EES before peak holiday traffic arrives at the port.
Dover normally experiences its busiest weekend by the time most schools have officially broken up for summer, so it expects traffic to peak from Friday 17 July.
The port said EES checks at the start of the May half-term holiday led to four and a half hours of delays, and it expects almost 50% more vehicles to travel through Dover this summer.
Tesco considering sale of central European operations
Sarah Butler
Tesco is considering a sale of its operations in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – its last overseas outpost.
The sale of the businesses, which involves 561 stores employing more than 22,000, as first reported by the Financial Times, would mark the end of its global empire which once encompassed the US, Korea, China and Turkey.
This empire has gradually been sold off in a series of deals as Tesco focused on the UK in the wake of its financial difficulties prompted by an accounting scandal in 2014.
In its recently published annual report, Tesco said profits had dipped in its eastern European business as a result of increased competition in Slovakia and rising regulatory issues. It wrote down the value of its stores by £75m.
It is expected that Tesco would use the proceeds of a sale to underpin its efforts to keep down prices and invest in technology and potentially more stores to maintain its position as the UK’s biggest supermarket group.
Summer holiday bookings bounce back amid fragile Middle East ceasefire, Jet2 says
Summer holiday bookings have bounced back recently after the fragile ceasefire in the Middle East, the package holiday operator Jet2 has said.
The company, which flies about 20 million people every year, said its summer bookings are up by 7.1% compared with this time last year and the average load factor – which measures its available seating capacity filled with paying passengers – is up 1.2 percentage points.
The chief executive, Steve Heapy, said:
There is still a massive amount of people who want to go away. But they have delayed their purchase because they wanted to see what happened with the conflict.
The market is now in good shape, and consumers are desperate to go away and perhaps sleep in a room with air conditioning.
The travel industry had said that many holidaymakers were putting off booking their trips this summer because of fears around higher jet fuel bills and disruptions triggered by the war in the Middle East.
But there has been a strong recovery in recent weeks across all of Jet2’s destinations, the company said. Shares in Jet2, which is listed in London, jumped by about 10% in early trading on Wednesday after the comments, despite signs of renewed tensions in the Middle East.
Heapy said:
Turkey, Cyprus, eastern Greek islands, Bulgaria and parts of north Africa have rebounded the most in percentage terms, but all destinations have increased.
Sarah Butler
Associated British Foods, the owner of Twinings, Kingsmill and Primark, is to rename its baker arm Hovis Bakeries after completing the takeover of rival baker Hovis.
The company appeared to indicate that job cuts could be on the cards as it said the deal would “deliver substantial operational synergies and efficiencies across production and distribution” but involve upfront costs on restructure.
George Weston, the chief executive of Associated British Foods, said:
The completion of this transaction is a significant step towards the delivery of a profitable UK bread business. By combining our expertise, scale and capabilities with targeted investment into new product categories, this business can return to growth, provide greater consumer choice, serve our customers better than ever and so create value for shareholders. The transaction will support the wider UK economy, including by securing high-quality jobs.
The £75m deal has been finalised after the UK’s competition watchdog ruled that the takeover did not raise competition concerns because if the deal did not go ahead “the most likely outcome” would be ABF’s bakeries arm leaving the UK market entirely.
Britons to buy 8m mini fans this year – but almost half will end up in landfill
Britons are expected to buy nearly 8m mini fans this year as they are “surging on to the market” in the hot weather – but almost half of those are expected to be low-quality products that end up in landfill within a year.
Waste managers and recycling campaigners have raised concerns as the number of online searches for electrically powered handheld fans, which sell for as little as £2, has already surpassed that seen in the whole of 2025 in the first six months of this year.
The late June heat surge caused Google searches to more than double on the month before, according to data sourced by the campaign group Material Focus.
Electrical goods retailers have confirmed an increase in demand for cooling technology. The online specialist Joybuy said sales of all electrical fans were up more than 2,500% week on week during last month’s heatwave. The Chinese group, which sells handheld fans for less than £5, has fuelled the trend by giving away 6,000 of them free at transport hubs in London.
John Lewis said sales of its £15 neck fan more than tripled during the heatwave, while the boss of Currys admitted that fans were in short supply after sales rose almost 3,000% over the hottest weekend compared with a week earlier.
Ominously, Donald Trump has said the memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Iran is “over”.
Speaking at the NATO summit in Ankara, the US president said:
I do not want to deal with them any more, they are scum
They are sick people, they are vicious, violent people.”
He then adds:
As far as I am concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them. They are liars. … There is something wrong with them. They are cuckoo. As far as I am concerned, it is over.”
Brent crude jumped more than 6% to a daily high of $79.26 a barrel after his remarks, as investors took fright.
European stock markets slide
European stock markets are sliding, following in Asia’s footsteps. There were modest losses on Wall Street on Tuesday too.
The FTSE 100 index in London has lost 130 points, or 1.2%, to 10,533. The Dax in Frankfurt and the FTSE MiB in Milan both fell 1.1% whiel the CAC in Paris lost 0.9% and the Ibex was down nearly 1%.
Richard Hunter, head of markets at the trading platform interactive investor, said:
The waves of doubt from Asia washed on to US shores, where Samsung Electronics shares had fallen by 7% despite a blockbuster set of numbers. Not only does this bring into question AI valuations alongside an increasingly high bar of expectation, the imminent second quarter earnings season in the US is now primed for the most severe of tests and thus the possibility of widespread disappointment to all but the strongest of profit reports.
The calls are becoming increasingly loud that the levels of capital investment could struggle to produce the productivity gains and profits to justify a decent rate of return, if at all. As such, US markets struggled to make headway as investors sought solace in sectors such as healthcare and financials as the rotation continued, and in the likes of Walmart which announced product price cuts to maintain its domestic dominance.
Sentiment was also negatively affected on what is becoming a ceasefire in the Middle East in name only. Reports of an Iranian attack on a liquefied natural gas tanker in the Strait of Hormuz was followed by retaliatory US strikes in the region, leading to a spike of more than 3% in oil prices. The US also reimposed crude oil sales sanctions on Iran, all of which casts real doubts on the longer-term outlook for peace in the Middle East.
While the Federal Reserve’s minutes later today will not include this latest development, the central bank’s clear focus on inflation will need to be reassessed, putting the possibility of a rate hike this year back on the table.
Vistry warns of first-half loss, unsold homes and discounting
Vistry Group, one of Britain’s biggest housebuilders, has warned of a loss in the first half, caused by a load of unsold homes forcing it to resort to discounting.
Adam Daniels, the new chief executive, has been in post for three months and has pushed through price cuts to shift homes that won’t sell. Vistry, formerly known as Bovis Homes, had £600m of unsold private homes at the start of the year, but has roughly halved this and is left with under £300m of unsold properties.
It said £190m of the reduction will come through upon completion of the sales during the second half.
The average discount it offered to private buyers was 7.1%, up from 1.4% in the first half of last year.
Vistry expects to make a loss before tax of £30m in the first half of the year, worse than its estimate in May when it forecast a significantly reduced profit compared with last year.
Its chief financial officer, Tim Lawlor, has quit after four years with the company. He will leave in October to take up a CFO role in a large privately-owned business in a different sector.
After a positive start to the year, market conditions deteriorated in the second quarter, reflecting increased uncertainty and lower customer confidence triggered by the Middle East conflict, Vistry said.
Although we would welcome some demand-side stimulus we are not anticipating a significant change in open market conditions in the second half, or in early 2027.
Build cost inflation is stabilising at around 3%-4% after rising in the first half, with costs of building materials pushed higher by the ramifications of the war in the Middle East.
The new boss Daniels is carrying out a review of the business and will announce the outcome in September. The company is seeking to cut £25m of annual costs through voluntary redundancies and more selective hiring.
In recent years, Vistry has shifted towards building social homes in partnership with with housing associations, local authorities and build to rent investors, and is negotiating new framework agreements with 10 of its key partners.
Vistry rebranded from Bovis after taking over the housebuilding division of Galliford Try in a £1.1bn deal in 2020 and acquired the “partnerships” business Countryside for £1.3bn two years later.
Segro, the FTSE 100 warehouse landlord, is forming a joint venture to build a data centre in Paris.
The company is in talks with the US logistics company Prologis about a proposed £12.6bn takeover, plans to construct a fully fitted data centre in a 50-50 partnership with the UK-based Pure Data Centres Group.
Segro is also discussions over a first fully fitted data centre lease in Park Royal, London. It says it has Europe’s largest data centre cluster.
Segro’s properties in the first half were 94.5% full, down 0.4% from December.
The company, founded in 1920, owns, manages and builds modern warehousing, industrial property and data centres across the UK and seven other European countries, with a portfolio of 10.9m square metres of space, from big-box logistics to urban warehouses and data centres.
In the US, the construction of scores of data centres to power AI has sparked huge concerns among local residents (who are usually not consulted) about the pollution and noise they cause and the impact on drinking water, the vast amounts of energy they consume, and the destruction of natural habitats.
Severn Trent had ‘serious failings’ in wastewater duties but escapes fine
The water company Severn Trent has been found to have had “serious failings” in its duties to deal effectively with wastewater and sewage, but escaped a fine.
Britain’s water regulator Ofwat said it decided not to impose a financial penalty because the company took proactive steps to identify failures and invest £98m to address them.
This includes additional capacity at 65 wastewater treatment sites, storm tank improvements, increased storage at storm overflows, and £26m of “nature-based solutions” in the Mansfield area.
This is the eighth case in Ofwat’s sector-wide wastewater investigation which has so far led to enforcement packages and fines of more than £300m.
Ofwat’s investigation found that Severn Trent Water breached its duties, failing to effectually provide drainage and deal with the contents of its sewers. The company was also found to have breached requirements of its licence to have in place adequate processes and systems to meet those duties.
While it now has the right processes in place, the company is required to fix all outstanding issues, the regulator said.
In contrast to the seven other cases, Severn Trent Water proactively identified problems in its own network and began putting them right before Ofwat opened an enforcement case against the company in July 2024.
Two other wastewater cases remain open.
Lynn Parker, senior director for enforcement at Ofwat, said:
Our investigation found serious and unacceptable breaches by Severn Trent Water — that is not in question and the company accepts it. But their response to those failures sets a standard we expect from all companies: identifying the problem, proactively investing to fix it, and cooperating openly with the regulator.
The 41% reduction in spills we are now seeing is what genuine accountability looks like in practice. We will always act where companies fail their customers and the environment. But we will also be clear, publicly, when a company does the right thing.
Virgin Media fined £28m for preventing customers from cancelling contracts
Lauren Almeida
Virgin Media has been fined £28m by the UK telecoms watchdog for repeatedly preventing customers from cancelling their contracts over a near-three-year period.
Ofcom discovered that Virgin Media “likely mishandled” millions of phone calls between January 2022 and September 2024, with deliberate call-dropping tactics, unnecessary call transfers and putting customers on hold for “no reason”.
The watchdog launched an investigation into the company after it received almost 2,000 complaints from Virgin Media broadband, landline and pay-TV customers who struggled to cancel their contracts.
The £28m fine, which was reduced by 30% as Virgin Media admitted to its failing and agreed to settle the case, is Ofcom’s biggest ever under its consumer protection rules.
The regulator’s investigation found that millions of calls made by customers between January 2022 and September 2024 were likely mishandled by call agents “in order to delay or prevent customers from cancelling and switching to a competitor”. Customers can save hundreds of pounds by switching to a new deal.
It also uncovered evidence of “deliberate mishandling of calls by retention team agents”, with a commission scheme that “effectively encouraged” and financially rewarded agents for “behaving in this way”.
Introduction: Oil prices rise after fresh US strikes on Iran and return of sanctions on Tehran
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.
Oil prices have risen by more than 3% after fresh strikes from the US and Iran tested a fragile truce.
Brent crude climbed $2.49 to $76.65 a barrel, up 3.4%.
The US military carried out a new wave of strikes against Iran on Tuesday and revoked a licence allowing Tehran to sell oil after three tankers were hit by projectiles in the strait of Hormuz, putting more pressure on the ceasefire agreed weeks ago to negotiate a permanent deal to end the war.
NATO secretary general Mark Rutte said the US strikes were “absolutely necessary,” talking to reporters before a summit of NATO leaders in Ankara.
At least four oil and gas tankers have turned back after trying to transit the strait, a key shipping passage, according to ship-tracking data.
However, at least two crude oil tankers managed to leave the strait, each carrying 2m barrels of oil.
Asian stock markets fell in volatile trading, with Samsung Electronics shares sliding for a second day, despite the company reporting better-than-expected profits. Samsung slumped 6.8%.
The Nikkei in Tokyo fell 1.6% while the Kospi index in Seoul tumbled nearly 5%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng bucked the trend, rising 3%.
Sara Perring, head of APAC cash equity sales at JPMorgan, told Reuters
Short-term profit taking on long-term winners, particularly the AI theme, appears to be a global dynamic… we sh ould expect elevvated volatility and continued foreign sellingin orea equities in the near term.
The Kospi index had rallied 192% over the last 12 months, and has now fallen about 20% from its peak, noted Jefferies analyst Mohit Kumar.
The market action shows the crowded nature of the semiconductor bet but also that the sector would need to keep delivering on solid earnings to maintain the sharp rally of recent months.
The Agenda