Marketing Newscast

(Edited 09 April 2025)

The FTSE 100 index rallied yesterday, rising by 208.45 points or 2.7% by close, clawing back half Monday’s losses, but that was before US President Donald Trump confirmed a 104% tariff on Chinese imports would take effect at 5am this morning, as Beijing refused to meet Trump's deadline to withdraw its own retaliatory levies on the US. Wall Street, which was also rallying, subsequently plunged again and the S&P 500 closed 1.57% down. Overnight, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index traded 3.41% lower by close, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed 0.3% down so, inevitably, the FTSE is back on its steep downward descent this morning. At the time of writing, the FTSE 100 has recovered slightly from its opening plunge, but has still lost 178.26 points to stand at 7,732.27, a drop of 2.25%. The FTSE All Share is 2.20% lower. But Trump shows no sign whatsoever of backing down on his tariff war; in a speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner in Washington DC last night, he said the US will “very shortly” going to announce a “major tariff” on pharmaceuticals. It has also been reported he told Taiwan’s TSMC, a major microchip supplier, that he got the firm to pledge to build factories in the US by saying he would slap a 100% tariff on the company if it did not. Oil prices fell again, to $60.13 a barrel, and the US dollar dropped 0.5% against various global currencies. Also, US government bonds are being sold “aggressively,” according to the BBC’s Economics Editor Faisa; Islam, as their usual ‘safe haven’ status is thrown into doubt, spiking the effective interest rates for 10 and 30 year US borrowing. This is a “firesale of US Treasuries”, one Bank of America analyst told Islam, one that could have direct consequences for the price of US mortgages and business lending.

Here in the UK, financial data company Moneyfacts is reporting that the average two-year fixed mortgage rate today is 5.3%, down from 5.32% on Tuesday. The average five-year fix is 5.15%, down from 5.17%. Analysts are suggesting that the Bank of England may need to make more interest rates cuts than expected previously this year because of the crisis, to give the economy a boost, despite inflation of 2.8% still being above the central bank’s 2% target.

India's central bank has cut interest rates by 0.25% amid a raft economic downgrades because of Trump's tariffs. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reduced its inter-bank lending rate from 6.25% to 6%, a second cut since February when rates were brought down for the first time in nearly five years. From today, Indian goods being exported to the US will face additional tariffs of up to 27%.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, however, is remaining positive. She told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning that she is confident that Britain can get a trade deal with the US and escape tariff turmoil. “We are committed to making sure we keep cool heads, we don’t have knee-jerk reactions. We don’t want to see the sort of retaliation and trade wars that have been happening overnight between the US and China," she said. Asked if she can give a timeframe, she replied: “We absolutely feel the urgency… We are working at pace. We are very confident that we'll get there."

Chancellor Rachel Reeves, meanwhile, has called in the CEOs of Hargreaves Lansdown, Legal & General, Lloyds Banking Group and M&G today for talks about the implications of Donald Trump’s tariffs on financial markets and the British economy, Sky News reports. Also, it has been revealed that the current downturn has come on top of an earlier downturn: UK-focused funds have suffered their worst ever quarter on record, according to data from Calastone, which says over the first three months of 2025, investors pulled £3.5bn from UK funds, with £1.2bn being withdrawn in March alone. So it may not be all Trump’s fault.

Certainly, City AM is running a story today suggesting some of Britain’s woes can be laid firmly at the door of the Chancellor herself. Adding to her headaches is news that millionaires are thought to be quitting the UK in record numbers. According to the latest World’s Wealthiest Cities study by wealth advisory Henley & Partners, in the past 12 years, only sanction-hit Moscow has lost more ultra-high net worth individuals than London. The capital has lost 12% of its dollar millionaires since 2014, while Russia has lost 25%. The decline is especially worrying, City AM notes, because according to estate agency Knight Frank’s inaugural Global Cities survey in 2013, London had the world at its feet, and was the “most important city in the world” to its ultra-high-net-worth clients, a status the city was forecast to maintain until 2023, with an expectation that its billionaire population would increase by 85% over the next ten years. In fact, London does not now even feature as one of the world’s five ‘wealthiest cities,’ a decline the authors of the Henley & Partners’ report attributed London’s fall to a toxic cocktail of the London Stock Exchange’s dwindling influence, the ascendance of hubs like Dubai and Frankfurt, and a succession of damaging Government policy decisions diminishing the city’s allure to the global super rich. A previous study by the firm and New World Wealthfound 10,080 millionaires – by which it means residents with over $1m in liquid assets - left the UK over the course of 2024. Peter Ferrigno, director of tax at Henley & Partners, told the newspaper: “I think the effects of the non-Dom abolition are already clear in the number of people that left the UK in the past year,” adding that changes to inheritance tax (IHT) are also acting as a deterrent to international investors. “The UK has one of the highest IHT rates in the world, and it cuts in at £3255,000 of [an] estate,” Ferrigno said. “Any foreign national in the UK for more than 10 years would then be caught by that, and as all structures to avoid this such as trusts have been caught as well, the only solution is to leave.”

A row has broken out between Prime Minster Sir Keir Starmer and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Speaking to the House of Commons Liaison Committee, which questions the prime minister twice a year, Starmer criticised the OBR for downgrading growth forecasts (the Government’s fiscal watchdog has halved its estimates for 2025 from 2% to 1%) saying it had not “priced in” the effects of Labour’s back to work measures. “On the impact assessments, it is significant to my mind that the ability of any policy or legislation to change any behaviour at all is not priced in, in other words the OBR has scored nothing against any change here,” he said, adding: “The assumption is that not a single person changes their behaviour”. “I personally struggle with that way of looking at it because I do think that these measures will make a material difference and they need to make a material difference.” The OBR, however, said it was “unable to incorporate most of the supply-side impacts” of the Pathways to Work Green Paper into its forecast “due to insufficient information from the Government on the policy details and analysis of their likely economic effects”. The difference of opinion is significant as before the General Election, Labour promised to beef up the role of the OBR, saying in its manifesto: “Unlike the Conservatives, Labour will never sideline the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for political convenience. Instead, we will strengthen the role of the OBR. Every fiscal event making significant changes to taxation or spending will be subject to an independent OBR forecast”. This pledge was a response to former Prime Minister Liz Truss’ calls to abolish the OBR on the grounds of its flawed forecasts, and her failure consult the body ahead of her so-called mini-Budget. Truss said yesterday on X that Starmer’s comments had proved her right. “After all the chest beating by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves about strengthening the OBR, it would be good if they admitted I was right,” she wrote.

Sir Keir Starmer has given the go-ahead for a new £50bn Hollywood theme park to be opened by Universal in Bedfordshire, a first in Europe for the multi-media giant in Europe. The park, to be built on a 480-acre plot of land occupied formerly by Stewartby’s brickworks - once the largest in the world - will be open by 2031 and is expected to attract 8.5m visitors a year. Universal says it will create roughly 28,000 jobs. The site was chosen, Universal says, because more than half the UK population can reach it within two-hours; it has good transport links and is close to Luton Airport, which has just got planning approval for a major expansion plan. “Today we closed the deal on a multibillion-pound investment that will see Bedford home to one of the biggest entertainment parks in Europe, firmly putting the county on the global stage,” Starmer said. Currently, Universal operates theme parks in Hollywood and Orlando, as well as in Japan, Beijing and Singapore. Its attractions are based on its huge film catalogue, which includes Minions, Wicked, Jurassic Park, and some intellectual property from third parties, including Harry Potter.

Starmer is also expected to name John Fingleton, a former CEO of the Office of Fair Trading, as the chair of a nuclear regulatory taskforce which will aim to incentivise greater investment in Britain’s nuclear energy industry, Sky News reports.

British Steel is reportedly at risk of running out of raw materials within weeks. The Government is considering nationalising the company, owned by China’s Jingye, which has announced plans to shut two blast furnaces at the Scunthorpe plant, after rejecting a £500m government lifeline despite two years’ of talks. It said the coke-fired blast furnaces and steelmaking operations were "no longer financial sustainable, due to highly challenging market conditions, the imposition of tariffs and higher environmental costs relating to the production of high-carbon steel". Between 2,000 and 2,700 jobs will go because of the decision, out of a total workforce of 3,500. It is Simon Boyd, managing director of REIDsteel, a British Steel customer, who has told the BBC that Jingye only has "days left to secure the order of materials to prevent the forced closure of the blast furnaces over the next month". Government intervention is the "only solution if we want to keep steel making in the UK," he warned.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Sir Philip Geen's human rights were not breached when he was named by Lord Hain in the House of Lords in 2018 as being the subject of misconduct allegations which at the time were subject to an injunction which prevented journalists from reporting them. Hain used the safety of Parliamentary privilege to expose the allegations of sexual and racial abuse and bullying made by five of Green’s employees, leading to the former Topshop boss being named publicly in the press. Parliamentary privilege gives MPs and peers absolute free speech protection from any legal action. It also means their comments can be reported without fear of legal repercussions. Sir Philip "categorically" denied any unlawful sexual behaviour. In a unanimous decision, eight judges in Strasbourg found the right to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights had not been violated; that Green’s complaints brought under Article 6, which gives the right to a fair hearing; and under Article 13, the right to an effective remedy; were all "inadmissible". Lord Hain said: "I'm really pleased that the Strasbourg Court [has] defended parliamentary privilege."

And finally… Elon Musk has called President Trump's trade adviser, Peter Navarro, a "moron" over comments he made about Musk’s electric vehicle firm, Tesla. Navarro was "dumber than a sack of bricks," he said in posts on his social media platform X, after Navarro gave an interview in which he said Musk was “not a car manufacturer” but a “car assembler” because he imports so many parts from overseas, saying he wanted to see parts made in the US instead. Musk, who has hinted he is not on board with Trump’s tariff war, despite heading up the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) which is tasked with slashing the size and spending of the federal government, said Navarro's claims about Tesla were "demonstrably false".