Sports · Sun Belt Post
Key events 7m ago Introduction: UK house prices at standstill; Britain risks being ‘uninvestable’ without North Sea field approvals, says energy boss Introduction: UK house prices at standstill; Britain risks being ‘uninvestable’ without North Sea field approvals, says energy boss Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy. The UK housing market has come to a standstill, ahead of the introduction of the government’s Your First Home scheme targeted at first-time buyers. The latest figures from Lloyds Banking Group show prices flat last month, following a 0.3% dip in August.
The average property now costs £298,441, while annual growth was also flat. Andrew Asaam , mortgages director at Lloyds, said: double quotation mark While the market overall has been fairly subdued, property prices have so far proved resilient during a period of higher mortgage rates, which has been driven by changing expectations around the future path of Base Rate. That’s mirrored in wider economic data, with household spending holding up better than many expected despite energy and other cost pressures arising from the Middle East conflict.
Whether that picture continues is likely to depend on how confident consumers feel that the latest cost‐of‐living pressures will prove temporary. Confidence has long been a key driver of housing market activity, and will play an important role in shaping demand over the remainder of this year and into 2027. For now, the housing market appears to be balancing buyer caution with continued underlying demand.
While higher mortgage rates and wider economic uncertainty are encouraging some people to take a more measured approach, new enquiries from prospective buyers are now at their highest since February. That should help sustain activity in the near term, with any movement in house prices likely to remain modest. The energy giant Equinor has warned it may stop investing in the UK if new oil and gas fields at Rosebank and Jackdaw are not approved.
Anders Opedal , boss of the Norwegian state oil company which part-owns the sites, told the BBC : double quotation mark The question will be: is the UK investable in the future? I hope it will not come to that. He said the company would “have to take a hard view about it” if the UK government decides against new drilling.
It has to decide whether to give final approval to extract oil and gas at Rosebank and Jackdaw, despite a ban pledged in Labour’s election manifesto. Asian shares are down, while on Wall Street, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both finished at new all-time highs. The S&P 500 rose nearly 0.6% to 7,818.93 while the Nasdaq closed at 27,599.886.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares excluding Japan fell 0.3%. Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.6%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.5%, the Singapore market was down 1.3% and South Korea’s Kospi tumbled nearly 2%. Oil prices have risen back above $100 a barrel again.
Brent crude is up 0.66% at $101.19 a barrel, while US crude is 0.5% ahead at $89.86 a barrel. Investors are weighing up supply constraints from a storm heading for North American oil-producing regions and Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, against higher supplies of oil from the Middle East Around 12m barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and 2m bpd of refined oil products have left the Middle East on tankers in the last seven to 10 days, according to commodities trading giant Vitol, Reuters reported. After last week’s selloff in government bond markets, bonds rallied on Tuesday, pushing their yields (or interest rates) lower.
Ten-year French yields fell more than 11 basis points and the spread between French and safer German bonds, which hit almost 160 basis points last week, narrowed to 132bps. The euro recovered from its declines over the past week and stabilised just above $1.1250. ANZ economists said: double quotation mark A sense of calm returned to European bond markets with French, Italian and Greek bonds outperforming amid a broad rally.
This morning, French 10-year yields rose nearly 5bps to 4.796%, while US Treasury yields rose 4.5bps, to 5.31%. UK gilt yields meanwhile are down a smidgen to 5.37%. The Agenda 11.30am BST: UK Treasury gilt 2028 auction 7pm BST: US Federal Reserve minutes of last policy meeting
Source: The Guardian
