LIVE
Updated 7 mins ago
Yahoo Finance UK

FTSE 100 LIVE: Stocks muted as UK government borrowing jumps to £17.4bn in October

LaToya Harding · Business Reporter, Yahoo Finance UK
Updated 1 min read

In This Article:

The FTSE 100 (^FTSE) and European stocks were muted on Thursday as UK government borrowing reached £17.4bn in October, the second-highest level for the month since records began.

The figure was £1.6bn higher than the same month last year and came in higher than the £13.3bn forecast by many economists, according to Bloomberg.

Alex Kerr, UK economist at Capital Economics, said that these latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), "underline the little wiggle room the chancellor has to significantly increase day-to-day spending".

Since the start of the financial year, total borrowing costs stands at £96.6bn, which is £1.1bn more than the same period in 2023.

ONS deputy director for public sector finances, Jessica Barnaby, said: "Despite the cut in the main rates of national insurance earlier in 2024, total receipts rose on last year.

"However, with spending on public services, benefits and debt interest costs all up on last year, expenditure rose faster than overall revenue."

  • London’s benchmark index was just 0.1% higher in early trade

  • Germany's DAX (^GDAXI) was treading water and the CAC (^FCHI) in Paris headed 0.3% into the red

  • The pan-European STOXX 600 (^STOXX) was down 0.2%

  • Wall Street is set for a positive start as S&P 500 futures (ES=F), Dow futures (YM=F) and Nasdaq futures (NQ=F) were all in the green.

  • The pound was 0.1% lower against the US dollar (GBPUSD=X) at 1.2634

Follow along for live updates throughout the day:

LIVE 3 updates
  • LaToya Harding
  • LaToya Harding

    Asia and US stocks

    Asian shares were mostly lower overnight with the Nikkei (^N225) slipping 0.9% on the day in Japan, as shares in semiconductor equipment maker Advantest dropped and chipmaker Tokyo Electron shed 0.5%. The Hang Seng (^HSI) fell 0.5% in Hong Kong.

    However, the Shanghai Composite (000001.SS) was 0.7% up by the end of the session.

    It came as markets digested the strong and highly anticipated profit report from Nvidia (NVDA) which again topped analysts’ expectations. In after-hours trading, the AI darling shares lost 2.5%

    All three of the major Wall Street indexes spent much of Wednesday in negative territory. The Nasdaq (^IXIC) remained 0.1% down at 18,966.14, when the market closed, but S&P 500 (^GSPC) was flat at 5,917.11 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) finished up 0.3% at 43,408.47.

    In the bond market, the yield on much-watched 10-year US Treasury notes rose to 4.409% from 4.406% late on Tuesday.

  • LaToya Harding

    Coming up...

    Good morning, and welcome back to our markets live blog. As usual we will be taking a deep dive into what's moving markets and happening across the global economy.

    Here's a quick look at what's on the agenda for today:

    • 7am: Trading updates: JD Wetherspoon, Jet2, CMC Markets

    • 7am: UK public finances for October

    • 11am: CBI industrial trends report for October

    • 1.30pm: US weekly jobless claims

    • 1.30pm: Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index

    • 3pm: Eurozone consumer confidence report

    • 3pm: US Existing Home Sales

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.

and

Recommended Stories