Robust FTSE, robust UK? Not essentially: CNBC’s UK Alternate e-newsletter

This report is from this week’s CNBC’s UK Alternate e-newsletter by Ian King. Like what you see? You may subscribe here.

Ian Holloway, one of the eccentric managers in British soccer, is known for his idioms and sayings.

One among his most celebrated got here when, in Might 2004, his Queens Park Rangers crew had secured promotion to England’s second tier: “They are saying each canine has his day — and in the present day is Woof Day. Right this moment I simply wish to bark.”

Recently, the FTSE-100, lengthy a canine amongst fairness indices, has been having fun with its very personal Woof Day. Britain’s premier inventory index is up 11% thus far this yr and has this month achieved a few notable benchmarks.

The index, launched on Jan. 3, 1984, with a price of 1,000, hit the 9,000 milestone for the primary time on July 15 and adopted that up on Thursday final week by hitting the famous updates in a string of all-time closing highs of 9,138.37.

It has taken simply two years to go from 8,000 to 9,000 in contrast with the seven painstaking years it took to rise from 7,000 to eight,000.

The Footsie’s year-to-date efficiency is among the finest in world inventory markets. It has outperformed different well-known benchmarks such because the S&P 500, the Nikkei 225 and the CAC-40, with the DAX-40 in Germany one of many few friends to have eclipsed it. This outperformance of the S&P 500, ought to or not it’s sustained, is fairly uncommon.

The Footsie has solely outdone the U.S. benchmark twice over the course of a yr — in 2016 and 2022 — for the reason that eruption of the worldwide monetary disaster 18 years in the past. That displays not solely the dynamism and development potential of the S&P’s constituents, mainly the tech sector, but additionally the Footsie’s over-weighting in what are perceived by many buyers as stodgier, defensive sectors, corresponding to financials and client staples, and extremely cyclical sectors corresponding to power and mining.

Accordingly, even after the current efficiency, it’s nonetheless sitting on a worth/earnings a number of solely simply above its long-term common of 15 whereas the S&P — which, we must always not overlook, additionally hit a report final week — nonetheless trades on a a number of of just about 30.

These scores replicate the very various factors which have pushed returns. Whereas capital appreciation has pushed simply over two-thirds of the S&P’s complete return over time, roughly half of the Footsie’s complete return has come from dividends.

The attachment of U.Ok. buyers to dividends, one thing usually disparaged as ‘coupon clipping’ down the years, is pronounced.

The Footsie’s stable displaying final week was for related causes to the rallies elsewhere: aid on the U.S. reaching a deal with Japan over tariffs and optimism that one thing related could be achieved with the European Union, though the latter has proved disappointing, at the very least as far as European fairness markets have been involved.

However there have been different, broader elements additionally at play throughout 2025.

The Footsie’s heavy gearing towards defensive shares has performed properly this yr as buyers search a shelter from Trump-induced volatility. There’s additionally a whole lot of anecdotal proof that it has benefited from some buyers taking their cash exterior the U.S. — one thing that was significantly evident within the first 4 months of the yr and summed up within the expression, which first appeared within the Wall Road Journal on Might 19, the ‘ABUSA (Anywhere But USA) commerce’.

And there have been essential boosts for particular person sectors, most notably protection, following commitments from a variety of Western governments to boost protection spending.

Rolls-Royce, the plane engine producer which additionally has a considerable protection enterprise, has seen its shares rise by 75% thus far this yr. BAE Systems, the U.Ok.’s greatest protection contractor, is up 59% for the reason that starting of the yr. The pair at the moment are respectively the sixth and eleventh greatest firms within the index.

Particular components on the day the Footsie hit its most up-to-date report final week included robust earnings updates from a bunch of constituents, most notably Reckitt, the family merchandise group; Howden Joinery, the kitchen and joinery provider and Lloyds Banking Group.

Even BT, a serial disappointment, rose sharply after quarterly outcomes proved no worse than anticipated. That day additionally noticed a decline within the pound — an element that usually advantages the index as a result of Footsie constituents derive four-fifths of their earnings abroad, primarily in U.S. {dollars} and euros.

This was a degree not tremendously appreciated by some buyers till the U.Ok. voted to go away the EU on June 23, 2016, and the pound fell by 10% in opposition to the buck in a matter of hours.

Initially, the Footsie fell sharply, in keeping with different U.Ok. belongings. Nonetheless, as realization dawned {that a} weaker pound interprets into greater earnings from abroad revenues, the index rallied and, per week later, it was some 2.6% greater than it had been earlier than the referendum.

And this, in flip, results in in all probability essentially the most vital reality misplaced on many bizarre British buyers. The Footsie is often perceived to be a barometer of U.Ok. financial — and, definitely, company — well being.

The reality is that it isn’t within the slightest bit reflective of the U.Ok. financial system. Sure, there are some firms — BT and Lloyds being good examples — that derive the vast majority of their earnings within the U.Ok.

Nonetheless, the Footsie can be filled with firms that do little or no enterprise within the U.Ok., corresponding to Antofagasta, a Chilean copper miner; Fresnillo, a Mexican silver miner; Mondi, a worldwide chief in paper and packaging with 100 manufacturing websites world wide however none in Britain; and Ashtead Group, a plant and power rent firm that derives greater than 90% of its earnings from the U.S., the place it trades beneath the identify Sunbelt Leases — the identify it’s going to take when it strikes its major inventory itemizing early in 2026.

Even a variety of companies historically seen as quintessentially British to the extent that they’ve (or have had) the phrase of their firm moniker, corresponding to BP, BAE Methods and British American Tobacco, derive the vast majority of their earnings exterior the U.Ok.

Of the 20 greatest firms within the Footsie, solely Lloyds Banking Group and NatWest Group, one other lender, make the vast majority of their earnings within the U.Ok.

It didn’t all the time was this manner.

At its launch, 41 years in the past, the Footsie was stuffed with firms that made the bulk, if not all, of their gross sales and earnings within the U.Ok., together with a clutch of domestically oriented brewing, pub and resort operators in Scottish & Newcastle, Bass, Whitbread, Grand Metropolitan and Allied Lyons; two flat pack furnishings and joinery firms in Magnet & Southerns and MFI; and an entire host of then U.Ok.-focused retailers, together with Burton Group, Home of Fraser, Sears (no relation to the U.S. retailer of the identical identify), British Dwelling Shops, Marks & Spencer and Nice Common Shops.

With globalization but to take off — this was, after all, earlier than the autumn of the Berlin Wall — even these monetary providers firms within the Footsie had been largely domestically targeted, together with the insurers Industrial Union and Basic Accident (now each a part of Aviva Group), Prudential and Solar Life and lenders corresponding to Royal Financial institution of Scotland, Midland Financial institution (now a part of HSBC) and Barclays, which was but to embark on its push into the wholesale and funding banking actions with which it’s most carefully related as of late.

At its beginning, the Footsie contained solely a handful of firms that may very well be thought to be genuinely worldwide in scope, together with a pair which dated again to the outdated British Empire: Consolidated Gold Fields, based in South Africa in 1887 by the imperialist Cecil Rhodes and Harrisons & Crosfield, now the specialty chemical compounds firm Elementis however then finest recognized for proudly owning Malaysian rubber plantations.

Then got here globalization and, with it down the years, a string of IPOs of international firms, significantly from South Africa, wishing to faucet into London’s extra liquid capital markets.

In being so internationally targeted, the Footsie isn’t any totally different from the DAX-40, whose members derive round four-fifths of their earnings from exterior Germany or the CAC-40, whose constituents make round three-quarters of their earnings from exterior France.

But it surely definitely shouldn’t be taken as a barometer of company Britain’s well being — nonetheless good it makes a few of us really feel on days when it hits new highs.

— Ian King

Natwest Chief Monetary Officer Katie Murray discusses the British financial institution’s earnings, its share buyback and the present U.Ok. financial image.

CNBC’s Silvia Amaro experiences on European leaders voicing their frustrations with the phrases of the U.S.-EU commerce deal and the stress it’s going to placed on the bloc’s financial system.

Storm Uru, fund supervisor at Liontrust Asset Administration, discusses current tech earnings and explains a few of the firm’s contrarian calls on the Magnificent Seven.

— Sophie Kiderlin

The EU-U.S. commerce deal might have one sudden winner: The UK. The European Union is dealing with a better U.S. tariff charge than the U.Ok., which might put the nation at an advantage in comparison with the bloc.

Barclays second-quarter revenue beats estimates as funding banking revenues swell. The British lender additionally introduced a £1 billion ($1.33 billion) share buyback, whereas market volatility boosted investment banking revenues.

UK pushes Apple and Google for cellular adjustments to curb market energy. The U.K.’s Competition and Markets authority proposed designating the 2 firms as having “strategic market standing.”

— Sophie Kiderlin

U.Ok. shares have largely maintained their upward momentum, with the FTSE 100 remaining above the 9,000 level threshold it surpassed for the primary time final week. Good points over the past week totaled round 0.6% as of Tuesday, although this lagged the broader Stoxx 600 index up 1.4%.

The British pound on Monday logged its greatest session achieve in opposition to the euro since April, climbing 0.66%, as buyers assessed the EU-U.S. commerce deal.

ING analysts mentioned that whereas some would attribute the transfer to the U.Ok.’s comparatively higher cope with the White Home, there additionally seemed to be some short-term unwinding of the lengthy euro-sterling commerce that has been well-liked this summer time.