Business news live: FTSE 100 falls but oil shares rise after UK-US trade deal

After yesterday’s news that Meta are to buy a stake in Scale AI for almost $15bn, today two more tech behemoths are ready to fund further AI-related initiatives.

Much smaller scale this time, but Nvidia are reportedly investing $15m and Samsung $10m into Skild, a company which makes software for AI robots.

The push towards physical AI-related products, like robots, cars or other moving items, is increasingly seen as the next big driver for those firms who have made huge profits so far from chips and software behind AI models.

The re-rise of office work among financial companies continues to increase, with the FT reporting that Panmure Liberum has joined Deutsche Bank and UBS in telling staff they must choose Mondays or Fridays, or both, as at least one of three office-based days.

The move away from work from home flexibility has been particularly noticeable in City firms this year.

Peel Hunt have staff back in four days now.

HSBC reportedly has a shortage of a “few thousand” desks around the country as they get staff back to the office.

A female entrepreneur was left feeling “absolutely humiliated” after she was refused entry to London Tech Week because she was with her 18-month-old daughter.

Davina Schonle had travelled for three hours to get to the event at Olympia, where she planned to meet potential suppliers for her new start-up AI company.

But on arrival on Monday, she said officials prevented her from entering with her daughter, Isabella, who was in a pram.

Ongoing news this morning is from India where a plane bound for Gatwick, London, has crashed.

Meanwhile, shares in Boeing have dropped 8 per cent in pre-market trading following the news.

The American airliner suffered a spate of issues last year but seemed to have turned a corner, the share price up 15 per cent in a year and 20 per cent year to date in 2025.

More details on the Boeing share price from PA:

Shares in Boeing tumbled in pre-market trading on Thursday after one of its planes crashed shortly after taking off in India.

The US-based airplane manufacturer, which has been blighted by safety issues in recent years, saw shares drop as much as 8%.

A Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft bound for Gatwick airport, carrying 242 people including 53 British nationals, appeared to explode after crashing shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad Airport.

Airline Air India said 169 passengers are Indian nationals, 53 are British, one is Canadian and seven are Portuguese.

EDF has bought up Pod Point, the company which owns more than a quarter of a million electric vehicle charging points, for around £10.6m.

The energy giant was already a stakeholder and said the buyout was the only reasonable way to let Pod Point continue as a viable business amid challenging conditions.

While Pod Point’s share price peaked at 275p after its 2021 IPO, EDF’s deal for it means a payment of about 6.5p per share.

The UK’s primary index, the FTSE 100, remains up by 0.13 per cent today, in contrast to the benchmarks in France and Germany which are down 0.6 and 1.0 per cent respectively.

Within the 100 on these shores, Halma (4.3pc), BT (2.96pc) and Tesco (2.86pc) are the biggest risers.

At the other end of the charts, airlines Easyjet and British Airways owner IAG are more more than 3.5 per cent down, as the wider airline industry watches on to events in India.

A little while ahead of opening, caution and uncertainty around trade deals mean stocks are set to open lower in the US today.

The S&P 500 is down 0.3 per cent in pre-trading and the Nasdaq is 0.5 per cent down.

However, a few individual winners can be seen before the opening bell too.

Oracle are up more than 8.3 per cent after posting a better than expected earnings report last night and shares are now up close to last December’s highs.

Last month the Bank of England cut interest rates to 4.25 per cent and most analysts at the time expected an ongoing one cut per quarter.

The economic landscape is quickly changing every week this year it seems, however, and analysts are mixed over whether next week’s MPC meeting will result in another cut.

Recent jobs and salary data are an indication that another cut is possible, but higher inflation figures than expected last time out put the case forward for staying higher, longer.

Financial markets are still just about pricing in two further cuts this year, down to 3.75 per cent.