Closing summary
Time to wrap up…
The energy regulator for Britain, Ofgem, has said it will increase the cap on energy bills from October by 2%, the equivalent of a £35 rise in annual bills for the average home, despite a 2% fall in the wholesale price in the energy markets over the last three months. Prices for households will go up just as the colder weather sets in because money is needed to cover the rising cost of the government’s energy policies.
About £15 of the £35 increase will fund an expansion of the warm home discount scheme to provide an extra 2.7 million households with a £150 reduction in their bills.
Thames Water has agreed a payment plan for £123m sewage and dividend fines, as it races to secure funding to avoid temporary government nationalisation.
Earlier this month the government approved the appointment of insolvency advisers to consult on plans for Thames Water to be placed into a special administration regime (SAR).
The debt-laden utility firm was hit with a record £104m fine by Ofwat in May over environmental breaches involving sewage spills, after failing to operate and manage its treatment works and wastewater networks effectively.
At the same time, a further £18.2m fine was levied on Thames for breaking dividend rules, the first penalty of its kind in the water industry.
The penalties were originally due to be paid by 20 August but the regulator gave the company some breathing space to pay the fines. Ofwat has now approved Thames’s request for a payment plan, which will result in it paying £24.5m, or 20% of the penalties, by the end of September, with the rest to be paid later.
Lego builds record sales of £4bn as parents steer children away from smartphones. The Danish toy company said sales increased by 12% to a record 34.6bn Danish kroner (£4bn) in the first half of the year, rising well ahead of the recovering global toy market in which sales rose 7%.
Niels B. Christiansen, chief executive, said Lego could be profiting from parents’ desire to keep children away from phones because of the effect of social media on mental health.
Over in the US, the highlight of the day will be when the chip designer Nvidia reports its quarterly earnings after the market close, or around 9pm BST.
Wall Street has opened flat today, with the S&P 500 share index down by 0.06% at the open. The Nasdaq index is also down slightly by 0.08%.
All eyes will be on chip designer Nvidia today when it reports after the US market closes.
Victoria Scholar, of the investment broker Interactive Investor, says:
Nvidia gets set to release its second quarter results after the bell as the final US tech giant to report this season.
There’s a lot of focus on this earnings report given that it comes off the back of a shaky period for tech stocks. The AI darlings like Nvidia, Palantir and Meta have suffered some selling pressure as investors start to question whether the winning streak is running out of steam. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI suggested a bubble could be forming in AI stocks and a report from MIT said 95% of organisations are getting zero return on generative AI investments.
However this comes after a strong bull run off the April lows for Nvidia which rebounded to become the first public company to achieve a market cap of $4 trillion in July.
…According to Refinitiv, Nvidia is expected to report Q2 earnings per share of $1 on revenues of $46 billion, up from 96 cents and $44.06 billion respectively in the previous quarter.
There will be a lot riding on guidance for the rest of the year with investors looking for reassurances that Nvidia can continue to deliver growth. China will be another focal point following the resumption of its AI chip sales there after Nvidia agreed to pay the US government 15% of Chinese revenues. Last quarter, Nvidia said it lost out on $2.5 billion because of China export restrictions.
Investors will also be paying close attention to its Blackwell business which made up 70% of Nvidia’s data centre sales last quarter.
Elsewhere this afternoon, the London-listed warehouse owner Warehouse Reit confirmed that it has ended takeover talks with its rival Tritax Big Box Reit, clearing the way for a takeover by the commercial property investor Blackstone.
Blackstone’s latest offer for the company amounts to 115p cash per share, valuing the business at about £489m.
Market snapshot: Stocks muted ahead of Nvidia earnings
Here’s what markets are doing as we go into lunchtime…
The FTSE 100 is flat as a pancake today – NatWest is the worst performer, with its shares down 2.4%. The best performer so far is JD Sports, though its shares are only up 1.7%. That is despite the fact that it reported a fall in sales in its second quarter, though investors appear to have taken confidence in the fact that performance in its North American market has improved slightly. The fashion retailer also announced another £100m share buyback.
The mid-cap FTSE 250 index is down by 0.3%. The miner Hochschild is the worst performer, with its shares tumbling by roughly 14% today after it cut its production forecasts for the year.
The stock market is pretty muted across Europe today, with the Stoxx 600 up slightly by 0.15%.
Meanwhile the US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of other major currencies, is up 0.45%. The pound is now down 0.42% against the dollar to $1.34.
The big market news is not landing until later this evening: Nvidia will report its quarterly earnings after the US markets close, after 9pm BST. The chip designer crossed the $4 trillion market capitalisation mark in July, becoming the biggest company in the world.
Nvidia shares are up by 0.6% in pre-market trading. For now, futures for both the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq are up just 0.03%.
Retail sales volumes down in August, says CBI
More bad news from the retail sector this morning: sales volumes fell in August, marking 11 consecutive months of decline, according to a survey by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).
The CBI’s monthly gauge of how retail sales compared with a year earlier stood at -32 this month, a slight improvement of -34 in July.
Martin Sartorius, principal economist at the CBI, said:
Retailers endured another tough month in August, with annual sales volumes falling for the eleventh consecutive month. Weak demand and higher labour costs continue to put pressure on margins, dampening sentiment across the retail and wider distribution sector. This downbeat outlook is reflected in firms’ plans to scale back investment and hiring.
The government’s fiscal decisions are continuing to bite, and retailers’ struggles send a clear signal: business cannot be asked to balance the books again at the Autumn Budget. Building business confidence through delivery must be the priority — starting with a rethink of the Employment Rights Bill, which risks piling on unnecessary costs and holding back jobs and investment.”
Fears that UK consumers will rein in spending sent jitters across the retail sector yesterday, wiping hundreds of millions of pounds off the value of some of the biggest retailers in the country, including the owners of Primark and B&Q, and the home improvement chain Wickes.
The UK government has just sold £5bn worth in three-year bonds in a scheduled action. Demand was good, with the auction covered 3.16 times. The bonds were sold with a yield of 4.375%, due in 2028.
The gilt market has been rocky lately, with yield on the 30-year bond trading close to its highest level since 1998 yesterday, at 5.62%. Yields rise when prices fall.
The yield on the 30-year rose to as high as 5.627% in early trading this morning, but it has since recovered, with the yield now at 5.583%.
Mohit Kumar, an analyst at the investment broker Jefferies, paints a gloomy picture of the UK’s economic outlook:
We have held a negative view on the UK fiscal picture and maintain the view. We see UK growth disappointing relative to official forecasts which would leave the Chancellor with a bigger budget hole than current official forecast suggests. Tax rises look inevitable in the Autumn statement. However, we are approaching levels where further tax rises start becoming counterproductive.
Updated
UK producer price inflation rises to 1.9% in June
Producer output price inflation rose to 1.9% in the year to June, up from a revised rise of 0.7% in the year to April 2025, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The ONS suspended the publication of its producer price indices in March, after it found calculation errors dating back to 2020. The figures published today represent interim data before it resumes regular publication in October.
The statistics agency said in July that producer price inflation in previous years had been higher than originally calculated.
It comes as pressure grows on the ONS over the reliability of its data. Staff at the Treasury and its independent spending watchdog have said they are struggling to get a clear picture of the economy because of problems at the ONS with producing reliable numbers.
Shares in utility stocks are rising this morning after the energy regulator Ofgem announced that it will increase its price cap on bills by 2% from October.
National Grid, SSE and Severn Trent are all up roughly 1% this morning, among the best performers in the UK’s blue chip FTSE 100 index. But overall the FTSE is not moving much, up very slightly by 0.03%.
Over in Europe, the Stoxx 600 index is up 0.4%. The French Cac 40 share index recovered 0.4%, after a fall earlier in the week over concerns around the potential collapse of Prime Minister François Bayrou’s government.
Charities call for more help with energy bills
Turning back to energy bills, several UK charities are warning that the 2% rise in the energy price cap (which covers England, Wales and Scotland) will hurt vulnerable people.
Official figures showed in May that energy bill defaults hit a record high, with 2.7% of direct debits for gas and electricity failing due to lack of funds.
Disability equality charity Scope has said millions of disabled people are being pushed into deeper fuel poverty as prices continue to rise.
Abdi Mohamed, head of policy at the charity, said:
Life costs more if you are disabled – on average an extra £1,095 a month. We hear from disabled people every day who tell us they are unable to power vital medical and mobility equipment, facing increasing pain and losing their independence.
The current support available for disabled people barely scratches the surface. And many no longer get the warm home discount at all, despite enormous energy costs.
The government must act with urgency to close the devastating gap in support and tackle this crisis.
Joanna Elson, chief executive of the charity Independent Age, argued political intervention is urgently needed, and that the warm homes discount should be extended to at least 2027. She said:
Far too often older people in financial hardship are bed bound by the cold, turning in early for the night dressed in hats and scarves in a desperate bid to keep warm through the winter months.
…The situation is dire, in the UK over one million older households are living in fuel poverty. The people in later life we speak to are making drastic and dangerous cutbacks because they cannot afford their energy bills. They are routinely switching off heating systems for weeks on end, visiting public places to stay warm and cutting down on food so they can pay their energy bills. This is unacceptable.
Jon Sparkes, chief executive of the learning disability charity Mencap, said:
People with a learning disability simply must be protected from ever increasing energy costs, or they face being pushed into fuel poverty, unable to stay safe, warm and healthy.
The 1.5 million people in the UK with a learning disability are more likely to have unavoidably high energy costs because they may need to charge specialist or medical equipment or heat their homes for longer.
…With bill prices set to increase even further this autumn, people with a learning disability and their families will continue to face these dangerous choices which leave them feeling anxious and afraid.
Lego profits build as toymaker attracts all ages
Lego has built a bigger share of the toy market as sales rose 12% in the first six months of the year after its Botanicals and Grand Prix-themed sets helped it attract adults as well as children.
As sales increased to 34.6bn Danish Kroner (£4bn), the company, which is known for its colourful building bricks, said it would open a new $1.5bn US factory and distribution centre in 2027, its seventh factory worldwide. The company previously said it was not bringing forward the development of the factory despite new import tariffs introduced by the Trump administration this year.
The group opened a new site in Vietnam earlier this year and expanded factories in Mexico and Hungary to meet demand.
Lego’s net profit increased 10% to 6.5bn Danish Kroner as the company said it had signed deals to produce toys linked to the Bluey and Pokémon cartoon series and launched the She Built That campaign to encourage girls to use Lego creatively.
Niels B Christiansen, the chief executive, said:
We are very pleased to have maintained our strong performance in the first half of 2025, winning share in the global toy market. This growth is driven by our large and innovative range of products that continues to be relevant across ages and interests.
Updated
Rio Tinto shares rise as new boss restructures business
Shares in Rio Tinto have ticked up 1% this morning after the miner’s new boss, Simon Trott, announced he will combine some of its biggest businesses in an effort to simplify the group, just two days after taking leadership of the company.
Rio will reorganise into three divisions: iron ore, aluminium and lithium, and copper, the company said on Wednesday.
Trott, who took over from Jakob Stausholm on 25 August, previously led Rio’s iron ore operations in northwest Australia, which make up more than half its earnings.
The Anglo-Australian miner has recently been trying to diversify its business, acquiring the US lithium producer Arcadium Lithium in a $6.7 billion deal earlier this year. It has made Rio one of the biggest producers of the battery-making metal in the world, alongside Albemarle and SQM.
Thames Water agrees payment plan for £123m sewage and dividend fines
Thames Water has agreed a payment plan with the water regulator for fines it owes worth £123m, as it races to secure funding to avoid temporary government nationalisation.
The water company, which serves 16 million customers across London and the south-east, is currently racing to pull together a deal to avoid collapse.
Earlier this month the government approved the appointment of insolvency advisers FTI Consulting to consult on plans for Thames Water to be placed into a special administration regime (SAR).
The debt-laden utility firm was hit with a record £104m fine by Ofwat in May over environmental breaches involving sewage spills, after failing to operate and manage its treatment works and wastewater networks effectively.
At the same time, a further £18.2m fine was levied on Thames for breaking dividend rules, the first penalty of its kind in the water industry. Ofwat said the company had paid out cash to investors despite having fallen short in its services to customers and its environmental record.
The penalties were originally due to be paid by 20 August but the regulator has given the company some breathing space to pay the fines. Ofwat had previously told Thames the penalties had to be “paid by the company and its investors, and not by customers”.
The regulator has approved Thames’ request for a payment plan, which will see it pay £24.5m, or 20% of the penalties, by the end of September, with the rest to be paid later.
Lidl Britain: supermarket invests £435m in warehouses
Lidl has invested £435m in warehouses in Leeds and London, developments it says will create more than 500 new jobs.
The supermarket has completed its extension of its Belvedere warehouse site in London, which now has 800,000 sq ft, a 167% increase compared with when it opened in 2003.
Last month Lidl also started construction at a 38-acre site in Gildersome, Leeds, with a new warehouse there expected to create 400 new jobs. The expansion at the site in London will create 120 new jobs, Lidl said.
It comes after the Resolution Foundation, a think tank, predicted the unemployment rate could hit 5% in the three months ended in August, the highest level since the start of 2021. The official unemployment rate was 4.7% in the last quarter.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves praised Lidl’s investment as “a strong vote of confidence in the UK economy”, though economists have warned that Britain faces serious challenges due to its weak underlying growth and a drop in the number of workers since the pandemic.
Reeves said:
Lidl’s commitment to new warehouse facilities in London and Leeds will unlock hundreds of new jobs, strengthen supply chains, and ensure families can access affordable, quality food. Through our Plan for Change we’re backing business and working in partnership to deliver growth and opportunity in communities across the country.
Over on the corporate front in the UK, fashion retailer JD Sports has reported a 3% drop in like-for-like sales in the 13 weeks ended on 2 August.
Chief executive Régis Schultz said the company was going up against tough comparators in Europe and the UK from the Euros football tournament last year, but “across our regions and fascias, in general we see a resilient consumer, albeit very selective on their purchases.” The retailer also said that it would launch another £100m share buyback.
Elsewhere, miner Rio Tinto’s new chief executive Simon Trott has announced that he will combine some of its biggest businesses in an effort to simplify the group.
Rio will reorganise into three divisions: iron ore, aluminium and lithium, and copper, the company said on Wednesday.
Trott said:
A simplified business structure, grounded in our fundamental commitment to safety and with sharper focus on the most compelling opportunities we have, will enable us to deliver new standards of operational excellence and value creation.
Updated
While another rise in energy bills will be unwelcome news for many, analysts at the consultancy Cornwall Insight have said that prices could fall under the next cap, which would start in January 2026.
Dr Craig Lowrey, of Cornwall Insight, said:
There is better news on the horizon with bills currently expected to ease in January, driven by a forecast fall in wholesale prices. Normally, that drop would have meant even lower bills, however, rising policy costs, such as funding for new nuclear projects are keeping bills a little higher.
These policy-driven costs are part of a broader shift in how we fund the energy transition. Nuclear will be one of the cornerstones of a more secure and sustainable energy system, yet some of the funding will ultimately need to come from billpayers.
This is a difficult trade off - after all, everyone wants to see bills come down. However, the challenge we face is clear: if we want to build a resilient, low-carbon energy future, we must be prepared to invest in it today.”
Ofgem lifts the energy price cap - the details
The energy regulator for Britain, Ofgem, has said it will increase the cap on energy bills from October by 2%, the equivalent of a £35 rise in annual bills for the average home.
Here’s more details of the energy price cap just announced, from Ofgem.
Electricity rates
If you are on a standard variable tariff (default tariff) and pay for your electricity by Direct Debit, you will pay on average 26.35p pence per kilowatt hour (kWh). The daily standing charge is 53.68 pence per day. This is based on the average across England, Scotland and Wales and includes VAT.
Gas rates
If you are on a standard variable tariff (default tariff) and pay for your gas by Direct Debit, you will pay on average 6.29 pence per kilowatt hour (kWh). The daily standing charge is 34.03 pence per day. This is based on the average across England, Scotland and Wales and includes VAT.
Why energy prices have gone up
Volatile global wholesale prices for energy are partly behind the increase, as well as the cost of the government’s expansion of its warm home discount policy.
Updated
Ofgem statement
Tim Jarvis, director general for Markets at Ofgem, says:
While there is still more to do, we are seeing signs of a healthier market. There are more people on fixed tariffs saving themselves money, switching is rising as options for consumers increase, and we’ve seen increases in customer satisfaction, alongside a reduction in complaints.
While today’s change is below inflation, we know customers might not be feeling it in their pockets. There are things you can do though – consider a fixed tariff as this could save more than £200 against the new cap. Paying by direct debit or smart pay as you go could also save you money.
In the longer term, we will continue to see fluctuations in our energy prices until we are insulated from volatile international gas markets. That’s why we continue to work with government and the sector to diversify our energy mix to reduce the reliance on markets we do not control.
Jarvis, speaking to Radio 4’s Today programme, also noted that the cost of running the network and the expansion of the government’s warm home discount scheme had also driven the rise in the cap.
Fuel charity: Higher bills just as temperatures drop will put 'even more pressure on households'
The rise in energy costs will hit people already struggling to pay their household bills, warns National Energy Action, the fuel poverty charity.
Michael Penhaligon, of the NEA, says:
Every day my colleagues and I speak to people in desperate circumstances. They can’t afford the very basics of heat and power. They are rationing their energy usage and they’re cutting back on food and other essentials. The individuals I speak to are left to rely on foodbanks, fuel vouchers and other charitable grants to help restore them to a basic standard of living. This shouldn’t be happening in the UK in 2025.
Some may say that the cap rising around £35 won’t have an impact but the people I speak to already can’t afford their bills and many of them are deep in debt. This can have a huge impact on their mental and physical wellbeing. A rise in bills just as temperatures start to drop will put even more pressure on households.
My colleagues and I achieve amazing outcomes for households to help them afford their energy; we get debt written off, we get them access to benefits they are entitled to, and we liaise with their suppliers on their behalf. But the scale and depth of fuel poverty is far beyond the remit of any charity.
Energy price cap to rise by 2%
Newsflash: The energy price cap on bills across Great Britain will rise by 2% in October, regulator Ofgem has announced.
This will lift the average annual cost of electricity and gas for a typical household to £1,755 per year.
This is the fourth consecutive hike in the cap on gas and electricity charges, and is slightly higher than analysts had just expected.
The cap limits the amount which a supplier can charge for a unit of electricity or gas.
Introduction: Energy price cap to be set today
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.
The cost of living could be about to get even tighter, as households find out whether their energy bills will rise again this autumn.
Ofgem, the energy regulator, is due to announce the latest price cap on the cost of a unit of energy at 7am.
Analysts expect the cap to rise due to recent increases in wholesale gas and electricity prices. Consultancy Cornwall Insight have predicted Ofgem will increase the cap by about 1% to £1,737 a year for a dual-fuel household, from the current level of £1,720.
A rise in energy prices would act as yet another driver for high inflation. Official figures showed last week that UK inflation rose in July to a higher-than-expected 3.8% amid higher food prices and travel costs. It marked the 10th consecutive month that inflation has sat above the Bank of England’s 2% target.
The new cap will come into effect in October and remain in place until the end of the year. The energy price cap sets the maximum that a supplier can charge for a unit of energy (there’s no cap on how high a bill can go).
Elsewhere, overnight Donald Trump has imposed 50% tariffs on most US imports from India, following through on his threat to punish one of the world’s largest economies over its purchases of discounted Russian oil.
The tariffs, which came into effect just after midnight on Wednesday in Washington, risk inflicting significant damage on the Indian economy and further disrupting global supply chains.
US tariffs of 25% on Indian goods went into force earlier this month, but Trump announced plans to double the rate, citing India’s purchases of Russian oil, which the White House has argued is indirectly funding Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The agenda
7:00AM BST: Energy regulator Ofgem announces UK energy price cap for October-December
10:00AM BST: UK 2028 gilt auction
After 9:00PM BST: Nvidia quarterly earnings report
Updated
