Britain’s FTSE 100 was up by 0.34% at 7,262.06 and the FTSE 250 up by 0.36% at 18,878.3, in a day of trading overshadowed by the news that Queen Elizabeth II has died. The monarch died in her home in Balmoral, Scotland, with family at her side. The news overshadowed Prime Minister Liz Truss’s first major policy announcement, an ‘Energy Price Guarantee’ which will see typical UK households pay £2,500 a year on energy bills for two years, in a move that could cost £150 billion.
The pound, which had plunged to levels not seen since 1985, recovered slightly against the dollar.
George Buckley, economist at Nomura London, said, “I suspect that the size of the package is probably going to weigh on the minds of MPC (Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee) members and this is why we’ve upped our forecast for what the Bank does over the course of the next few months or at least one of the reasons why we’ve got 50 basis points in the bank next week.”
“They really need to do a lot more than that, over the course of the next few months before thinking about loosening policy at some point towards the second half of next year.”
In Europe, the ECB raised interest by 75 basis points in an effort to tame spiralling inflation.
Oil and gas stocks rose on the news with Energean (GB:ENOG) shares rising 12% on news that it had raised its annual revenue and profit targets, with profit rising 165% to £173 million.
Among the day’s biggest fallers was cybersecurity firm Darktrace (GB:DARK), whose shares fell almost 35% on news that a potential takeover by U..S. private equity firm Thoma Bravo had fallen through.
British business news today
Truss’s energy plan puts Bank of England on the spot (FT)
Ed Milliband’s windfall tax plan would be a disaster to rival the price cap (Telegraph)
ECB raises rates by record 75 basis points to tame inflation (Times)
