Business
FTSE 100 pauses rally as Iran tensions escalate
Stock prices in London closed lower on Thursday as the FTSE 100 broke its winning streak amid a sharp fall for British Gas owner Centrica, though oil majors climbed as Brent surged on uncertainty in Iran.
The FTSE 100 index closed down 59.14 points, or 0.6%, at 10,627.04, the FTSE 250 ended down 112.95 points, or 0.5%, at 23,573.49, and the AIM all-share closed down 0.60 points, or 0.1%, at 811.14.
In European equities, the Cac 40 in Paris closed down 0.4%, and the Dax 40 in Frankfurt ended 0.9% lower.
The pound slumped to 1.3455 dollars on Thursday afternoon from 1.3548 at the equities close on Wednesday.
“The [FTSE 100] index fell back as investors digest a number of earnings results. But the downside could prove to be short-lived,” said StoneX analyst Fawad Razaqzada.
“Supported by a weaker pound and expectations that the Bank of England will cut rates in March, and potentially again in June, investors have been piling into UK stocks lately. That trend is likely to stay for a while yet.
“Today, rising oil prices amid Middle East tensions are helping to cushion the falls, with energy names like BP providing support.”
Fears around developments in Iran were in focus on Thursday.
US President Donald Trump urged Tehran to strike a “meaningful” deal as a huge American military build-up takes shape in the Middle East amid US threats of action.
“It’s proven to be over the years not easy to make a meaningful deal with Iran. We have to make a meaningful deal otherwise bad things happen,” he told the inaugural meeting of the so-called Board of Peace, his initiative to secure stability in Gaza.
He warned that Washington “may have to take it a step further” without any agreement, adding: “You’re going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days.”
Brent oil was higher at 71.71 dollars a barrel on Thursday afternoon from 69.62 late on Wednesday. Gold barely budged, sitting at 5,003.14 dollars an ounce, against 5,002.90.
As a result, shares in BP and Shell ended up 2.0% and 0.5% respectively.
Stocks in New York were lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.5%, the S&P 500 index fell 0.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.2%.
The yield on the US 10-year Treasury was unchanged from Wednesday at 4.08%. The yield on the US 30-year Treasury widened to 4.71% from 4.69%.
Some Federal Reserve policymakers believe the central bank should not rule out rate hikes, minutes from its latest meeting showed.
“Several participants indicated that they would have supported a two-sided description of the committee’s future interest rate decisions, reflecting the possibility that upward adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate could be appropriate if inflation remains at above-target levels,” according to the minutes released on Wednesday.
The Fed last month left the federal funds rate target range at 3.50%-3.75%.
In London, Centrica fell the most on the FTSE 100, losing 4.7% after the firm said it is pausing its share buybacks to invest in its infrastructure portfolio, including nuclear power. In addition, analysts said its 2026 guidance “appears weak”.
Centrica noted that it returned £1.1 billion in total to shareholders during 2025, including £800 million though share buybacks. It completed its overall £2 billion share buyback programme in January, repurchasing a quarter of its total share capital.
However, the company said: “We are now pausing the programme as we believe investment offers an opportunity to create more value for shareholders at this juncture. We will retain our capital discipline, the balance sheet will remain under constant review and excess capital will be returned to shareholders.”
Berenberg said the firm is guiding for a lower 2026, with improvements in the long term.
Analysts at UBS said guidance for 2026 “appears weak” as the centre of the ebitda range for the new retail and optimisation segments is £900 million, versus UBS’s £977 million.
“Centrica is hitting pause on buybacks so it can allocate spending to growth projects including the Sizewell C nuclear power. Executing on these ventures will be challenging and will put a dent in the company’s healthy cash position but could deliver more stable earnings if they ultimately prove successful,” said AJ Bell analyst Dan Coatsworth.
Mondi shares climbed 1.2%. It slashed its dividend as the packaging firm continued to grapple with “prolonged cyclical downturn” facing the industry.
The Weybridge-based packaging firm chopped its final dividend to 4.92 euro cents in 2025, down sharply from 46.67 cents in 2024, reducing the total payout for 2025 to 28.25 cents from 70 cents.
For 2025, Mondi reported a 29% slump in pre-tax profit to 269 million euros from 378 million in 2024.
But revenue was 7.66 billion euros, up 3.2% from 7.42 billion. Underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation were down 4.7% to 1.00 billion euros from 1.05 billion.
On the FTSE 250 index, Raspberry Pi retreated 6.9% after making sharp gains this week after a social media post said AI agents such as OpenClaw could drive demand for the firm’s single-board computers.
The stock is still up 36% over the last week.
On AIM, shares in Thruvision Group jumped 20%.
The Abingdon-based provider of walk-through people-screening technology said it has secured multiple new contracts at UK custodial facilities, worth £500,000 in total.
“These contract awards reflect the growing recognition of Thruvision’s technology across UK custodial settings and the clear operational value it delivers. The fact that institutions are selecting our solutions independently, on a site-by-site basis, demonstrates genuine demand pull and increasing confidence in our capability,” said chief executive Victoria Balchin.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were British American Tobacco, up 129.0p at 4,473.0p, Relx, up 59.0p at 2,293.0p, BAE Systems, up 53.0p at 2,163.0p, BP, up 9.5p at 479.0p, and Babcock International, up 21.0p at 1,397.0p.
The biggest fallers were Centrica, down 10.1p at 185.9p, Barclays, down 18.1p at 467.9p, Rio Tinto, down 271.0p at 7,118.0p, easyJet, down 16.8p at 475.5p, and Metlen Energy & Metals, down 1.2p at 34.9p.
Contributed by Alliance News
Business
Relief for US homebuyers as mortgage rates dip to 6.01%, lowest level in over 3 years – The Times of India
A drop in US mortgage rates is offering early encouragement to prospective homebuyers ahead of the crucial spring homebuying season, even as borrowing costs continue to hover near the 6% mark.The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage declined to 6.01% this week from 6.09% a week earlier, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday, AP reported. The rate stood at 6.85% during the same period last year.The latest reading marks the lowest level for the benchmark mortgage rate in more than three years, since September 8, 2022, when it averaged 5.89%. That was also the last time borrowing costs dipped below the 6% threshold.“The recent decline in rates is a favorable lead in to the annual spring homebuying season — good news for home shoppers who can afford to buy at current rates.”Shorter-term borrowing costs also eased. The average rate on a 15-year fixed mortgage, widely used by homeowners refinancing existing loans, fell to 5.35% from 5.44% last week. A year earlier, the average stood at 6.04%, according to Freddie Mac.
Walmart said Thursday that holiday-quarter sales rose nearly 6% and its quarterly earnings and revenue surpassed Wall Street’s expectations as gains in e-commerce, advertising and its third-party marketplace boosted its business.
For the full current fiscal year, Walmart said it expects net sales to increase by 3.5% to 4.5% and adjusted earnings per share to range from $2.75 to $2.85. That earnings outlook fell short of Wall Street’s expectations of $2.96 per share, according to LSEG.
In an interview with CNBC, Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said speedy deliveries from stores are helping Walmart attract more shoppers, particularly those with higher incomes.
“Our ability to serve customers at the scale that we have, combined with the speed that we now have, is really translating into continued market share gains,” he said.
Rainey said the company’s market share gains cut across all incomes, but were larger among upper-income households. For example, with fashion, a category that grew by a mid-single-digit percentage in the fourth quarter, almost all of that increase came from households with an annual income over $100,000, he said.
In the coming months, Rainey said he expects price increases from inflation and President Donald Trump‘s tariff hikes to ease. Inflation at Walmart in the U.S. in the fourth quarter was just above 1%, with slightly lower inflation for food and slightly higher for general merchandise, he said.
“It seems to be a little bit more of a normalized price environment,” he said. “I think we have, largely as a retail industry, absorbed or seen the brunt of the impact from tariffs.”
While that comment is welcome news to many U.S. shoppers who buy at the country’s largest grocer, it may be too early to say what pricing trends at the retailer mean for the rest of the economy. Though Walmart is viewed as a key barometer for the wider retail industry, it traditionally has had more power than its competitors to keep prices low in part because of its scale.
Here is what the big-box retailer reported for the fiscal fourth quarter compared with Wall Street’s estimates, according to a survey of analysts by LSEG:
- Earnings per share: 74 cents adjusted vs. 73 cents expected
- Revenue: $190.66 billion vs. $190.43 billion expected
Shares of Walmart were up about 2% in morning trading Thursday.
Yet as of Wednesday’s close, shares of the company have climbed about 22% over the past year and roughly 14% so far this year. That’s outpaced the S&P 500′s 12% gain over the past year and less than 1% rise year to date.
Walmart’s results Thursday also show an inflection point in the industry. For the first time, Amazon topped Walmart as the largest company by annual revenue, as the company posted $716.9 billion in sales for its most recent fiscal year compared with $713.2 billion for Walmart.
The companies aren’t an exact comparison, as Amazon gets a sizeable piece of its revenue from cloud computing and other tech services. Yet it underscores the competition between the two rivals, particularly as Walmart follows a similar playbook by growing revenue streams outside of brick-and-mortar retail, like from ads and its marketplace.
In the three-month period that ended Jan. 31, Walmart’s net income decreased to $4.24 billion, or 53 cents per share, compared with $5.25 billion, or 65 cents per share, in the year-ago period.
Excluding one-time items like investment gains and losses, legal settlements and business reorganization, Walmart’s adjusted earnings per share were 74 cents.
Revenue rose from $180.55 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Comparable sales jumped 4.6% for Walmart’s U.S. business and 4% for Sam’s Club in the fourth quarter, excluding fuel, compared with the year-ago period. The industry metric, also called same-store sales, includes sales from stores and clubs open for at least a year.
Walmart’s e-commerce sales in the U.S. rose 27% compared with the year-ago period, fueled by store-fulfilled pickup and delivery of online orders, along with the retailer’s third-party marketplace. That marked the company’s 15th straight quarter of double-digit digital gains. Global e-commerce sales increased 24% year over year.
For the company’s U.S. business, e-commerce accounted for 23% of sales – a record high for Walmart. The digital growth in the quarter included an approximately 50% gain in store-fulfilled deliveries and a roughly 41% increase in sales from Walmart Connect, its advertising business, the company said.
While Walmart is gaining ground, its growth is not evenly distributed across income groups.
In the interview with CNBC, Rainey said the company does “see some pressure on the lowest income cohort.” He said Walmart has tracked year-over-year spending trends by income group. Like in the prior quarter, he said it saw that spending among the highest earners compared to lower-income groups “had gapped out a little bit.”
The trend he described reflects what some economists have called the “K-shaped economy.”
Walmart’s quarterly report marked the first under its new CEO, John Furner. Furner, the former Walmart U.S. CEO and a more than three-decade company veteran, succeeded Doug McMillon as Walmart’s top executive on Feb. 1.
Investors largely expect Furner to focus on similar priorities as his predecessor McMillon, such as increasing Walmart’s online business, attracting more customers across incomes, and ramping up higher-margin businesses like its third-party marketplace and advertising.
Along with getting a new CEO, Walmart has hit other milestones lately. Its stock switched to the tech-heavy Nasdaq in December and its market value hit $1 trillion earlier this month.
Along with its results Thursday, Walmart also announced a new $30 billion share repurchase authorization, replacing a $20 billion buyback program approved in 2022.
Last Updated:
Mukesh Ambani said Reliance and Jio will invest Rs 10 lakh crore for affordable, multilingual AI to make India a global leader at India AI Impact Summit 2026.
RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani Presenting Keynote Address At India AI Impact Summit 2026
At the India AI Impact Summit 2026, Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani made it clear that India’s AI ambitions will not be modest.
“India will emerge as one of the greatest AI powers in the world in the 21st century,” Ambani said in his keynote address on ‘AI for Viksit Bharat’, laying out what he described as a long-term, nation-building roadmap.
‘AI Is Not Just Another Technology’
Ambani said artificial intelligence marks a defining shift in human history.
“For the first time, humans are creating human-like systems that can learn, speak, analyse and produce autonomously,” he said.
Calling AI the “mantra that powers every yantra”, he compared it to a modern-day Akshaya Patra — a source of limitless productivity and knowledge.
But he also pointed to a global divide.
One path, he said, risks concentrating AI power in a few countries where compute is expensive and data tightly controlled. The other path — which India supports — is one where AI is affordable and widely accessible.
“Our polarised world stands at a fork,” he noted, asking whether AI will democratise opportunity or deepen inequality.
Why India Has An Edge
Ambani said India’s rise as an AI powerhouse will be driven by what he called the country’s unmatched strengths in demography, democracy, digital infrastructure and data generation.
He cited India’s massive digital footprint:
- Nearly one billion internet users
- Among the lowest mobile data costs globally
- 1.4 billion Aadhaar digital IDs
- Over 12 billion monthly UPI transactions
- More than 100,000 startups and 100+ unicorns
“In terms of digital quality, there is no difference between Delhi and the remotest Indian village,” he said.
Ambani noted that Jio, with over 500 million subscribers, played a key role in India’s broadband and 5G revolution — and will now lead its AI transformation.
‘India Cannot Afford To Rent Intelligence’
Making three major announcements, Ambani said Jio will now connect India to the “Intelligence Era.”
“India cannot afford to rent intelligence,” he asserted. “We will reduce the cost of intelligence as dramatically as we reduced the cost of data.”
He also announced that Reliance and Jio will invest Rs 10 lakh crores over the next seven years starting this year. The investment, he said, is “patient, disciplined, nation-building capital” aimed at long-term economic value and strategic resilience.
Sovereign Compute Push: Data Centres, Green Power, Edge AI
Ambani said the biggest constraint in AI today is not talent, but the scarcity and high cost of compute.
To address this, Jio Intelligence will build India’s sovereign compute infrastructure through three initiatives:
Gigawatt-Scale Data Centres: Construction has begun on multi-gigawatt AI-ready data centres in Jamnagar, with over 120 MW coming online in the second half of 2026 and a clear path to gigawatt-scale capacity.
Green Energy Advantage: Reliance has access to up to 10 GW of surplus green power anchored by solar projects in Kutch and Andhra Pradesh.
Nationwide Edge Compute: An integrated edge-compute layer across Jio’s network will bring low-latency AI services closer to citizens — from kirana stores and farms to classrooms and clinics.
“When compute becomes infrastructure, innovation becomes inevitable,” Ambani said.
AI In Bharat’s Languages
A key pillar of Jio’s AI vision is multilingual capability across Indian languages.
“When farmers and artisans speak to AI in their own words and students learn in their mother tongue, this is not convenience — this is inclusion,” he said.
He said in hindi, “Jio AI Bharat ki bhaasha mein bolega, Bharat ki sanskruti mein phoolega, Bharat ki mitti mein phalega.”
Ambani also stressed that responsibility, data security and trust would remain core guarantees.
Rejecting fears of job losses, he said AI would create new high-skill opportunities rather than eliminate work.
“The AI story has shifted from who has the best model to who can build the strongest ecosystem,” he noted.
AI For Education, Healthcare And Farmers
Ambani said AI growth in India must be driven by “social relevance, not momentary craze.”
He highlighted several AI initiatives already underway:
JioShikshak: An adaptive AI teaching assistant in 22 languages
Jio ArogyaAI: First medical guidance in under five minutes in local languages
JioKrishi: Satellite-driven, voice-first advisory platform for farmers
JioBharatIQ: AI companion helping citizens access government services
He also announced AI-powered devices such as JioFrames and deeper integration of AI into content platforms like JioHotstar to enhance multilingual storytelling and India’s cultural influence globally.
‘AI Must Unite, Not Divide’
Ambani closed his address with a call for global cooperation.
“Be it chips or rare earths, AI works its magic through sharing, not hoarding — through collaboration, not conflict,” he said.
Positioning India as a bridge between the Global North and Global South, Ambani concluded with a message aligned with India’s diplomatic theme:
“One Earth. One Family. One Future.”
With a multi-trillion-rupee investment roadmap, sovereign compute ambitions, and a focus on affordability, Ambani’s address signals that Reliance is positioning itself at the centre of India’s AI century.
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February 19, 2026, 18:51 IST
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