Closing summary
Time to wrap up…
UK retailer stocks sold off today after a downbeat note from analysts at Deutsche Bank.
Associated British Foods, which owns Primark as well as a range of other food and drink brands such as Twinings, fell by as much as 5% today, after analysts at the bank downgraded their view on the stock from a neutral “hold” to “sell”. Deutsche also downgraded its view on home improvement retailer Wickes to a “sell”, and B&Q owner Kingfisher was moved down from a “buy” to a “hold”.
Meanwhile, the US stock market has had a rather subdued open, with the S&P 500 rising slightly by 0.5% in early trading as the stock market seems to shake off worries about Trump’s latest attack on the Fed.
Trump has moved to oust Lisa Cook, a governor at the Federal Reserve, in his latest attack on the American central bank.
It is an unprecedented intervention by a US president, which threatens to undermine the independence of the central bank of the biggest economy in the world.
Meanwhile, Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs and export restrictions on countries whose taxes, legislation and regulations target US big tech companies such as Google, Meta, Amazon and Apple.
In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, the US president said: “Digital taxes, legislation, rules or regulations are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American technology.”
He said such measures – which include the UK’s digital services tax, which raises about £800m annually from global tech companies through a 2% levy on revenues – also “outrageously give a complete pass to China’s largest tech companies”.
Trump said: “As the president of the United States, I will stand up to countries that attack our incredible American tech companies. Unless these discriminatory actions are removed, I, as president of the United States, will impose substantial additional tariffs on that country’s exports to the USA, and institute export restrictions on our highly protected technology and chips.”
UK tech firm Filtronic has announced its biggest ever contract worth £47.3m with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Shares in the County Durham-based defence and telecoms equipment maker rose nearly 5% on Tuesday after the announcement. The contract covers supply of a type of radio frequency tech designed for high-performance wireless communication, using next-generation gallium nitride (GaN) E-band technology.
Nat Edington, Filtronic CEO, said:
We are extremely proud to announce this landmark contract, which not only sets a new commercial record for Filtronic, but also reflect the success of our partnership with world-leading satellite company SpaceX, supporting the Starlink constellation.
It comes after Filtronic announced a £16.8 million contract in February with the US aerospace firm.
