Business
FTSE 100 reaches new high as gold and oil surge
Blue chips in London closed up sharply on Thursday, after hitting a new record peak on commodity price strength and well received trading updates.
The FTSE 100 index closed up 63.57 points, 0.7%, at 9,578.57. It had earlier established a new best level of 9,594.82.
The FTSE 250 ended 131.62 points higher, 0.6%, at 22,361.41 and the AIM All-Share advanced 7.26 points, 1.0%, at 775.29.
Boosting London’s lead index, there were gains in commodity prices with oil and gold moving ahead strongly.
Oil majors Shell and BP climbed 2.9% and 3.7%, respectively, as Brent crude surged.
Brent oil traded at 65.75 US dollars a barrel, up from 62.61 dollars late on Wednesday.
The rise followed co-ordinated US-EU sanctions aimed at cutting off Russian oil revenues.
Smaller energy producers tracked the move higher, with Tullow Oil jumping 7.4% and Harbour Energy up 5.1%.
US President Donald Trump said the sanctions would target Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest oil companies, after talks with Vladimir Putin “went nowhere”.
He described the measures as “tremendous”, but said he hoped they would be short-lived, adding: “We hope that the war will be settled.”
The move was joined by another round of punishments by the EU as part of attempts to pressure Moscow to end its three-and-a-half-year invasion of Ukraine.
“These new sanctions are likely to have a real impact,” said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, an analyst at Global Risk Management.
But Bridget Payne, analyst at Oxford Economics, expects any oil price strength to be limited.
“This is a significant escalation, but it doesn’t remove barrels from the market. It might add a modest risk premium if banks comply strictly, but any rally is likely to be limited by the surplus outlook,” Ms Payne wrote.
She expects the impact to fall mainly on Russian revenues rather than global supply.
Meanwhile, gold continued its roller-coaster week. The yellow metal traded at 4,146.49 dollars an ounce on Thursday, up from 4,028.64 dollars on Wednesday.
This saw Fresnillo rise 5.3% and Endeavour Mining jump 3.0%.
The price of gold fell sharply on Tuesday and Wednesday after recent strong gains.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote: “While a correction in speculative upside call options structures likely contributed to the selloff; we believe sticky, structural buying will continue further, and still see upside risk to our 4,900 dollar end-2026 forecast from growing interest in gold as a strategic portfolio diversifier.”
Trading news also gave the FTSE 100 a leg up on a busy day of updates, with Rentokil Initial soaring 8.3% and London Stock Exchange Group jumping 7.2%.
Rentokil’s gains came as it reported improved trading in its North American business, fuelling optimism that plans to turn around the unit are working.
The Crawley, West Sussex pest control and hygiene services business said revenue rose 4.6% at constant currency to 1.81 billion dollars (£1.36 billion) in the three months to September from 1.72 billion dollars (£1.29 billion) the year prior. Organic sales growth was 3.4%, picking up speed from 1.6% in the second quarter of 2025.
Revenue growth in North America was 4.6% with organic revenue growth of 3.4%. That organic sales growth represented an improvement from 1.4% in the second quarter and was ahead of 1.8% consensus.
RBC Capital Markets said: “We believe this statement highlights that Rentokil is slowly getting back on track and heading in the right direction. For patient investors, we continue to see Rentokil’s issues as fixable and see significant re-rating potential over time.”
London Stock Exchange climbed as it raised margin guidance after a strong third-quarter driven by growth across the business, led by Risk Intelligence and FTSE Russell indices.
LSEG also announced a £1 billion share buyback and a deal with 11 major banks for its Post Trade division.
The pound was quoted lower at 1.3323 US dollars at the time of the London equity market close on Thursday, compared to 1.3366 dollars on Wednesday.
The euro stood at 1.1609 dollars, down slightly compared to 1.1610 dollars. Against the Japanese yen, the dollar was trading at 152.71 yen, higher compared to 151.78 yen.
In Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris ended 0.2% higher, as did the DAX 40 in Frankfurt.
Stocks in New York were higher at the time of the London close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.1%, the S&P 500 was 0.3% higher, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.6%.
The yield on the US 10-year Treasury was quoted at 4.00%, widened from 3.96% on Wednesday. The yield on the US 30-year Treasury stood at 4.58%, up from 4.55% on Wednesday.
Back in London, Unilever rose 0.8% after reaffirming its annual guidance and forecasting faster growth in the second half of the year despite challenging market conditions.
Underlying sales, however, rose 3.9%, amid a 1.5% boost from volumes and a 2.4% advance in price. Underlying sales beat the company-compiled consensus of 3.7% growth.
Barclays said the beat was “powered by a standout” 5.5% in North America, which “absolutely stole the show”.
On the FTSE 250, trading updates provided a boost for Hunting, up 6.1%, Molten Ventures, up 15%, but held back AJ Bell, down 2.5% and Renishaw, down 2.3%.
AJ Bell chief executive Michael Summergill said budget uncertainty is causing disruption.
“Speculation over pension taxation ahead of the November budget, which has developed in the absence of a clear and lasting government commitment to pension tax stability, creates damaging uncertainty for customers and advisers,” he said.
WH Smith was knocked back 1.0% as Barclays downgraded to “equal weight” from “overweight”.
Ahead of the outcome of the Deloitte review into WH Smith’s US business, Barclays said there are “too many unknowns to take a strong view”.
“Our perspective is that we lack the necessary information to form a clear view of the likely path for profits, which makes it difficult for us to retain conviction in an overweight rating.
“In addition, there are many other consumer-facing stocks in our coverage universe trading at multiples similar to or below this multiple,” the broker said.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were: Rentokil Initial, up 33.9 pence at 441.2p; London Stock Exchange Group, up 626.0p at 9,346.0p; Fresnillo, up 110.0p at 2,190.0p; BP, up 15.55p at 436.95p; and Endeavour Mining, up 92.0p at 3,142.0p.
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were: easyJet, down 13.8p at 479.5p; Ashtead, down 138.0p at 5,292.0p; Schroders, down 7.0p at 372.0p; Relx, down 60.0p at 3,448.0p; and St James’s Place, down 22.0p at 1,331.0p.
Friday’s global economic diary has US CPI data, a slew of flash composite PMI readings, plus US retail sales and consumer confidence reports.
Friday’s UK corporate calendar has third quarter results from lender NatWest.
Contributed by Alliance News
Business
MLB faces a historic shift as potential lockout, media rights and other league changes loom
Thursday’s Opening Day may be the calm before the storm for Major League Baseball.
The league’s collective bargaining agreement with its players expires at the end of this season. Owners, with the commissioner’s backing, are almost sure to push for a salary cap (which would likely come with a salary floor to get players to the negotiating table).
MLB owners have never been able to get a cap passed by the players union. It’s unclear if the end of the 2026 season will lead to a different result, but MLB Players Association Interim Executive Director Bruce Meyer told ESPN last month he expects a lockout is “all but guaranteed.”
In addition to the CBA’s expiration, there are major shifts underway for baseball media rights. One-third of the league’s teams didn’t have local TV deals in place for this season until this week.
Nine MLB teams – the Washington Nationals, Seattle Mariners, Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals, Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays, Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, and Detroit Tigers – announced Wednesday their brand new MLB-operated team channels will be carried by DirecTV.
Most of those teams had previously been part of Main Street Sports (previously Diamond Sports Group), which operates FanDuel Sports Networks (previously Bally Sports). That entity has been teetering with liquidation, and the teams terminated their contracts with the company due to missed payments earlier this year.
A 10th team, the Atlanta Braves, is launching a new network called BravesVision. The Braves and Charter’s Spectrum announced a multiyear distribution agreement earlier this week.
MLB ideally wants the rights to all 30 teams in its control by the end of the 2028 season so that it can sell the in-market local games as a national package to a streamer. That would become the modern replacement to regional sports networks, and it would likely be a new, coveted package for streaming services such as ESPN and Amazon Prime Video.
Also at the end of the 2028 season, MLB’s national media rights for all of its packages will expire, allowing the league to redistribute games to its partners and potentially select new ones.
NBC, ESPN, Fox and a combined CBS/Turner have dominated national rights for the past few decades.
“The key in media negotiations now is having all of your rights available,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told me last year. “If you have all of your content – all of your playoffs, all of your regular season – available, there will be buyers, and I’m confident there will be buyers at a higher price for us.”
Manfred has even floated the idea of expanding to 32 teams and realigning the league geographically, upending or even eliminating the American and National leagues that have existed for more than 100 years.
Soaring TV ratings
It’s, of course, unclear how much of this hypothetical change will actually come to fruition.
But the potential for transformation at MLB is greater than at any of the other Big 4 professional leagues in the U.S.
And yet, baseball isn’t struggling — on the contrary. The implementation of the pitch clock in 2023 has led to shorter games, rising attendance and higher TV ratings.
Rob Manfred, Commissioner of the MLB, attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference at the Sun Valley Resort in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., on July 9, 2025.
David A. Grogan | CNBC
More than 50 million people in the U.S., Canada and Japan watched Game Seven of the World Series last year – the most-watched baseball game in 34 years. MLB recently wrapped up the World Baseball Classic – a global preseason tournament – which captured nearly 11 million viewers on Fox and Fox Deportes for its final game.
MLB team valuations rose 13% from last year. The average MLB team is now worth $2.95 billion, according to CNBC Sport data.
Still, the profitability of the league is in far worse shape than it is for the NFL, NBA and NHL, according to CNBC’s calculations. In 2025, MLB’s 30 teams had an EBITDA — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — margin of under 2%. Team average revenue was $426 million with average EBITDA of $7 million, including non-MLB ballpark events. In contrast, the comparable margin for the NFL was 20%; the NBA, 21% and the NHL, 22%, according to CNBC’s most recent valuations.
The new CBA at the end of this season could be the first significant step toward a very different MLB. But, similar to the WNBA, which announced its new CBA earlier this week, MLB must ensure negotiations to get a new labor agreement don’t jeopardize a wave of positive momentum.
A JLR spokesperson said: “Due to a part supply challenge with a supplier, we are temporarily pausing production on certain vehicle lines at our Solihull manufacturing facility. We are working closely with that supplier to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and minimise any impact on our clients or our operations.”
Business
WTO reform push: India flags dysfunctional dispute system at MC14, seeks review of e-commerce duty moratorium – The Times of India
India on Thursday urged members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to restore a fully functional dispute settlement system, saying the current mechanism has deprived countries of effective redressal, PTI reported.Speaking on the opening day of the WTO’s 14th ministerial conference (MC14) in Yaounde, Cameroon, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal stressed the need to revive the automatic and binding nature of dispute resolution within the global trade body.“A dysfunctional Dispute Settlement System has deprived Members from effective redressal. We must restore the automatic and binding dispute settlement system,” he said.The WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism has faced prolonged disruption since 2009 after the US blocked appointments to the Appellate Body.Goyal also called for a reassessment of the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, which WTO members have periodically extended since 1998. India has repeatedly raised concerns over the potential revenue implications of the arrangement.“In the absence of a common understanding among Members on the scope of the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions and given its potentially significant implications, the continued extension of this moratorium warrants careful reconsideration,” he said.The four-day MC14 is scheduled to conclude on March 29.On broader WTO reforms, Goyal emphasised that any restructuring should be transparent, inclusive and member-driven, with development concerns at the centre. He underlined that core principles such as non-discrimination, consensus-based decision-making and equity must be upheld. The minister added that the principle of special and differential treatment (S&DT) should be made precise, effective and operational.On agriculture negotiations, he said a permanent solution on public stockholding for food security purposes, the special safeguard mechanism and cotton are long-pending mandated issues that member countries “must deliver on them on priority”.“India remains committed to negotiating a comprehensive Fisheries Subsidies Agreement that balances current and future fishing needs, protects the livelihoods of poor fishers, with appropriate and effective S&DT,” Goyal said.He also stated that incorporating plurilateral outcomes into the WTO framework should be based on consensus and should not undermine the rights of non-participants or impose additional obligations on them.“We will engage constructively to show that WTO remains central to global trade and strive to Reform it to remain responsive, Perform in delivering on development, equity, and inclusiveness, and Transform to better serve the interests of the poor, vulnerable, and marginalized people, anchored in consensus and multilateralism,” he said.Other WTO members also highlighted the need for reforms. According to a statement from US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, the organisation has struggled to address systemic issues such as persistent trade imbalances, structural excess capacity, economic security and supply chain resilience.“As ministers, our focus should be on reforms that would make the WTO more responsive to Members and improve our ability to achieve outcomes that optimize our trading relationships,” Greer said, adding that countries should consider making the e-commerce duty moratorium permanent.Separately, a ministerial statement by the G-33 grouping of developing countries reiterated that public stockholding for food security remains a crucial policy tool for developing and least developed nations.“We urge all WTO Members to work together in reaching a permanent solution on this issue as per the Ministerial mandates,” the statement said.China also called for restoring a fully functioning dispute settlement mechanism at the earliest to strengthen the WTO’s role in global economic governance. The UK said it wanted to “improve accountability by reinstating a functioning dispute settlement system”.EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic warned that inaction could weaken the rules-based trading system. “Maintaining the status quo is not an option — we cannot go on as we are. If we do, we risk erosion of the rules-based system and the WTO sliding into irrelevance. Therefore, I strongly believe we must act urgently to reform the WTO,” he said
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