FTSE 100 edges up but tech woes rock New York

London’s FTSE 100 drifted in and out of positive territory in afternoon dealings before finally closing slightly higher on Friday, but equities across the Atlantic tumbled as worries over artificial intelligence sector spending sent tech stocks deeply into the red.

The FTSE 100 index edged up 7.71 points, or 0.1%, at 10,729.78. The FTSE 250 ended 220.80 points lower, 0.9%, at 24,453.36, and the AIM all-share declined 10.37 points, 1.4%, at 753.08.

For the week, the FTSE 100 added 0.4%, the FTSE 250 rose 0.9% and the AIM all-share also climbed 0.9%.

The pound was quoted at 1.3396 dollars late on Friday afternoon, higher than 1.3369 dollars at the London equities close on Thursday. Against the euro, sterling rose to 1.1996 euros from 1.1977 euros a day earlier. Earlier on Friday, the pound topped the 1.20 euros threshold for the first time since April 2025.

The euro was flat at 1.1163 dollars from 1.1162 dollars late on Thursday. Against the yen, the dollar fell to 157.50 yen from 157.85 yen.

The CAC 40 in Paris ended flat, while Frankfurt’s DAX 40 fell 0.9%. The likes of energy technology firm Siemens Energy, semiconductor company Infineon Technologies and infrastructure and construction group Hochtief, all with a sizeable data centre exposure, weighed on Frankfurt.

Paris and London fared better than Frankfurt, but there were still pockets of weakness among blue-chip names in both markets. Schneider Electric, which similarly provides services to data centres, ended lower in Paris.

In London, investment trust Polar Capital Technology shed 6.0%. Its portfolio includes a who’s who of tech names which were in the red stateside on Friday. IT infrastructure and hardware reseller Computacenter, a partner of chipmaker Nvidia and also exposed to the ebbs and flows of AI sentiment, also ended down 6.0%.

AJ Bell analyst Dan Coatsworth said there has been an “AI reality check”.

“For years, investors have treated tech as the golden ticket to wealth creation, and for a long time they have been richly rewarded,” Mr Coatsworth said. “That enthusiasm is now evaporating, and some investors are racing for the exit.

“The gigantic declines we’ve seen this week in shares such as Alphabet and Intel suggest that investor sentiment has been turned on its head. Current price action implies tech investors want to jump off the treadmill rather than slow it down.”

Alphabet plunged 12% in New York on Thursday. On Friday, Amazon was down 1.6% and Intel slumped 30% as their earnings similarly unnerved investors.

SPI Asset Management analyst Stephen Innes said: “The boom is beginning to eat its own tail. AI spending creates demand. Demand creates scarcity. Scarcity creates pricing power. Pricing power pushes the cost of the buildout even higher.

“Then Wall Street turns around and asks the hyperscalers why the buildout has become so expensive.”

Hyperscalers are large cloud computing service providers, including Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Oracle.

Around the time of the London equities close on Friday, stocks in New York were sharply in the red. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.8%, the S&P 500 was 1.6% lower and the Nasdaq Composite plunged 2.7%.

The yield on the US 10-year Treasury was quoted at 4.94% late on Friday afternoon, narrowing from 5.00% on Thursday. The yield on the US 30-year Treasury was at 5.31%, narrowing from 5.33%.

Brent oil was trading at 117.61 dollars a barrel on Friday, higher than 113.75 dollars late on Thursday, as investors kept one eye on both the conflict in the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war. Brent traded as high as around 118 dollars a barrel on Friday, its highest level since April.

Gold was quoted at 3,898.22 dollars an ounce on Friday, lower than 4,012.39 dollars on Thursday. Gold fell as low as around 3,891 dollars an ounce on Friday, the precious metal’s weakest level in more than a year.

On the London Stock Exchange, NatWest ended as the worst FTSE 100 performer, shedding 8.8%.

Guidance on net interest margin spooked the market.

Speaking on the call following third-quarter results, NatWest chief financial officer Katie Murray said: “Our current expectations of the mix of balance sheet growth across loans, deposits and wholesale funding does mean that margin continues to be broadly stable through 2027.”

NatWest reported broadly in-line third-quarter results, with lower-than-expected costs offsetting higher impairments and a slight miss on net interest income.

The Edinburgh-based lender said operating pretax profit rose 1.9% to £2.23 billion in the third quarter ended September 30 from £2.18 billion a year earlier, just ahead of £2.20 billion consensus.

AstraZeneca added 7.0%. The pharmaceutical company said pretax profit rose 22% to 3.96 billion dollars from 3.24 billion dollars a year earlier, while revenue increased 6.7% to 16.21 billion dollars from 15.19 billion dollars.

AstraZeneca maintained its full-year guidance for revenue growth of a mid-to-high single-digit percentage and core earnings per share growth of a low double-digit percentage at constant exchange rates.

Mobico shares climbed 12% after the National Express owner backed a £308 million cash takeover by Leita Mobility, a subsidiary of Spain’s Autobuses de Leon.

Under the terms of the deal, Mobico shareholders will receive 46 pence per share, representing a 55% premium to the transport operator’s closing share price of 29.7p on October 20, the last trading day before an offer period began.

The acquisition implies an enterprise value, including debt, of £2.32 billion.

A bitcoin sell-off offered another sub-plot on Friday. Cryptocurrency platform Binance said on Friday it was working to resolve a “complex attack” that affected around 6.3 billion dollars in funds, AFP reported.

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by daily trading volumes, said investigations had “uncovered additional points of breach”.

Coinbase, a cryptocurrency trading platform, was down 12% in New York at the time of the closing bell in London.

Monday’s economic events calendar has a slew of manufacturing purchasing managers’ index data, including from the UK at 09:30 GMT. Services data is released two days later.

The week also has a UK interest rate decision on Thursday, on the back of rate holds from the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank. Unlike its major counterparts, the Bank of England is expected to hike.

Monday’s corporate calendar has half-year results from budget airline Ryanair.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were AstraZeneca, up 908.0p at 13,960.0p, BT Group, up 14.3p at 227.3p, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, up 270.0p at 8,510.0p, Diageo, up 55.5p at 1,757.0p, and Relx, up 77.0p at 2,992.0p.

The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were NatWest Group, down 55.6p at 579.6p, Computacenter, down 317.0p at 4,938.0p, Polar Capital Technology Trust, down 37.5p at 592.5p, Airtel Africa, down 15.2p at 259.0p, and Lion Finance, down 690.0p at 12,030.0p.

– Contributed by Alliance News