Late market roundup: FTSE 100 climbs despite US falls and oil strength

The FTSE 100 ended the week on the front foot on Friday, on a mixed day for stocks in London, despite renewed tech weakness on Wall Street and a higher oil price.

The FTSE 100 index closed up 39.47 points, 0.4%, at 10,902.56. The FTSE 250 ended 111.43 points lower, 0.5%, at 24,805.41, and the AIM all-share ended up 0.93 of a point, 0.1%, at 757.19.

For the week, the FTSE 100 rose 2.2%, the FTSE 250 was 1.2% higher and the AIM all-share was up 0.4%.

The Cboe UK 100 ended up 0.4% at 1,082.23, the Cboe UK 250 closed 0.3% lower at 21,900.03, and the Cboe small companies fell 0.4% to 18,682.81.

In the US, equity markets were lower across the board. Around the time of the London equities close on Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.2%, the S&P 500 was 0.8% lower, and the Nasdaq Composite declined 1.4%.

Microsoft clawed back early falls to trade 0.1% higher as the technology titan continued efforts to restore services following a global outage affecting Outlook and other Microsoft 365 applications.

The Redmond, Washington-based company said it was seeing "positive results" from its recovery efforts and ruled out malicious activity as the cause of the disruption, attributing the outage to elevated load on its infrastructure.

The disruption, which began late Thursday, left businesses, governments and individuals worldwide unable to access crucial services for more than half a day.

Meanwhile, Nvidia fell a further 3.4% as investors continued to weigh the fall-out from Chief Executive Jensen Huang's departure on the firm and the wider technology industry.

Elsewhere, Advanced Micro Devices gave back 10% of its recent gains, with CEO Lisa Su one of those linked with the top job at rival Nvidia. Intel shed 5.0%, Broadcom was down 6.1% and Micron Technology 4.6% lower.

In London, the falls weighed on technology investors Polar Capital Technology Trust, down 3.4%, and Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, down 1.6%.

David Morrison, analyst at Trade Nation pointed out that Nvidia is the "cornerstone" of the AI trade.

"It designs the GPUs integral to the data centres currently in action, and those still to be built. It also helps to finance the data centre operators, neoclouds and frontier labs so dependent on its chips. The fact that Nvidia had lost more than a fifth of its value in four weeks even before the Huang scandal broke was a strong indication that investors have doubts over the likely returns on current, let alone future, AI investment. It may all work out fine. But there’s a risk it doesn't, and that may not yet be priced in. All this comes ahead of the highly anticipated Anthropic IPO," he noted.

While no date has been confirmed, reports suggest final pricing of Anthropic's initial public offer could come next Wednesday with trading starting a day later.

Anthropic is an AI lab focused on building intelligent models that large organisations can deploy.

In a filing earlier this week, Anthropic said it plans to to sell 825 million shares at USD70 to USD78. At the top of this range, the IPO would raise USD64.4 billion in gross proceeds. A separate USD26 billion non-voting placement with Alphabet's Google, Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, Broadcom, Micron, Microsoft and TSMC brings the combined total to USD90.4 billion, or nearly USD100 billion if the over-allotment option is fully exercised.

Taken together, the offering would be bigger than SpaceX's IPO, making it the biggest listing of all time. Elon Musk's SpaceX raised USD85.7 billion at its IPO back in July.

Bloomberg has reported the IPO has been heavily oversubscribed, drawing about six times the orders for the shares available.

Elsewhere, US producer prices increased less than expected in October, slowing sharply from September, although annual wholesale inflation accelerated to its highest level since November 2022, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The producer price index for final demand rose by 0.3% month-on-month in October, slowing from a 1.4% increase in September and below the FXStreet-cited consensus forecast of 0.4%.

On an annual basis, producer prices increased by 6.5%, accelerating from 6.3% in September but coming in below expectations of 6.6%. This marked the strongest annual increase since November 2022, when prices rose by 7.4%.

Core producer prices, which exclude food and energy, rose by 0.3% month-on-month, matching expectations and slowing from a 0.8% increase in September. On an annual basis, core prices increased by 5.0%, unchanged from September and in line with forecasts.

Incorporating the data, Barclays analyst Pooja Sriram forecast October core PCE inflation, a closely watched measure by the Federal Reserve, at 0.3% on-month and 3.2% on-year in October.

"The October PPI data carried clear imprints of firming pipeline price pressures for core goods, even as energy prices offered a respite to headline inflation," the analyst said.

"On balance, we think the PPI report today points to continued consumer price pressures in the coming months, consistent with our baseline forecast path for CPI and PCE prices," she added.

The pound was quoted at USD1.3219 late Friday afternoon, down from USD1.3233 at the same time on Thursday. Against the euro, sterling firmed to EUR1.1983 from EUR1.1968.

The euro was lower at USD1.1031 from USD1.1061 late Thursday. Against the yen, the dollar eased to JPY159.90 from JPY159.97.

Matthew Ryan, head of market strategy at Ebury noted a "stellar" week for the dollar has seen it post one of its best runs of 2026, and "it's hard to see what derails it for now".

The "hot" October inflation report and the "surprisingly hawkish" remarks from Fed member Christopher Waller, once seen as a dove on the committee, have added fresh momentum to the rally, he noted.

"We see a December hike as all but certain. Waller has said a 50bp move should be considered if core inflation came in at 0.3% or higher, which of course it did, so there is a growing risk of dissents favouring a larger move and a clear signal toward another hike in January," Ryan said.

For the dollar, this means the path of "least resistance remains higher for now, as long as the Fed stays hawkish, equity markets continue to wobble and the Iran war drags on without resolution," he added.

The yield on the US 10-year Treasury was quoted at 5.13% late on Friday afternoon, stretched from 5.08% on Thursday. The yield on the US 30-year Treasury was at 5.46%, widened from 5.42%.

In Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.1%, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt fell 0.1%.

Figures published by Eurostat showed economic growth in the eurozone slowed in the third quarter.

Gross domestic product increased by 0.4% quarter-on-quarter in the three months to September, in line with the flash estimate published in late October, but slowing from 0.6% growth in the second quarter.

In London, Aviva was among the FTSE 100's leading risers, climbing 3.4% after the insurer reiterated confidence in meeting its three-year group targets, supported by growth in its general insurance and wealth businesses.

Wise jumped 7.8% after reporting higher half-year profit and revenue, supported by continued growth in customers and international payment volumes.

Elsewhere, Asos rose 2.9% after Peel Hunt upgraded the online fashion retailer to 'buy' from 'add', raising its price target to 560p from 475p.

WH Smith fell 6.1% as the retailer extended losses following the publication of its annual results on Thursday.

While Dr Martens dropped a further 2.6% after Thursday's disappointing results.

Gold was quoted at USD3,878.82 an ounce Friday, higher than USD3,865.83 on Thursday.

Brent oil was trading at USD96.59 a barrel on Friday, higher than USD93.53 late Thursday.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Centrica, up 5.90p at 160.65p, Aviva, up 25.20p at 764.80p, Associated British Foods, up 47.00p at 2,053.00p, Autotrader Group, up 10.80p at 576.80p and J Sainsbury, up 6.10p at 352.90p.

The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were Polar Capital Technology Trust, down 20.00p at 571.50p, 3i Group, down 65.00p at 2,645.00p, Antofagasta, down 72.00p at 3,140.00p, Computacenter, down 96.00p at 4,878.00p and Weir, down 40.00p at 2,348.00p.

Monday's global economic events calendar has a slew of data from China including industrial production, retail sales and fixed asset investment. Japan GDP data is also on the calendar along with Canadian inflation figures.

Monday's local corporate calendar has half year results from storage firm Big Yellow and a trading update from insurer Legal & General.

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