By bizn_fun 
FTSE 100 hits record high as miners recover
Britain’s FTSE 100 share index has hit another record high at the start of trading.
With a risk-on mood gripping markets, the Footsie has gained 21 points, or 0.2%, to touch a fresh intraday high of 10,362 points.
This means the index has risen by 4.3% so far this year.
Mining stocks are back in the top risers; gold and metal producer Endeavour has jumped by 5%, followed by rival Fresnillo (+4%).
Copper producer Antofagasta (+2.5%) and Anglo American (+2.3%) are also benefitting from a pick-up in commodity prices.
Key events
Britain’s smaller share price index, the FTSE 250, has hit a four-year high this morning.
The FTSE 250, which contains medium-sized companies too small for the FTSE 100, gained over 0.3% to hit 23,520 points, the highest level since January 2022.
Trading platform Plus500 (+7%) are the top riser after annnouncing it has launched an event-based prediction markets on its US retail platform.
The Plus500 Futures offering will let retail customers trade contracts on economic, financial, and geopolitical events – following the roaring success of Polymarket.
UK grocery inflation drops
UK grocery inflation has dropped to a nine-month low, in welcome news for UK households, and the Bank of England.
Worldpanel by Numerator has reported that like-for-like grocery price inflation eased back to 4.0% in January, the lowest level since April last year.
The report also shows that own label accounted for 52.2% of grocery spending – the highest level ever recorded – as shoppers snaffled up cheaper options on the shelves.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Worldpanel by Numerator, says:
“For most shoppers, January is all about resetting household budgets, and this year was no exception. While grocery sales continue to grow and inflation eased to its lowest level in months, value remained front of mind for many – with own label hitting a record high, accounting for more than half of all grocery spend.”
Gold heads for biggest daily gain since 2008
Gold is on track for its biggest one-day jump since the financial crisis this morning!
Spot gold is up 5.8% so far today at $4,939 an ounce, as traders pile back in after the losses over the last two trading sessions.
This would be the biggest one-day gain since November 2008.
It appears that the sharp drop in gold on Friday and Monday, after it hit a record high near $5,600/oz, has shaken out some leveraged speculative positions, giving some investors confidence to dip a toe back into the bullion market.
Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management, says:
Gold prices have stopped falling overnight. If the froth is removed from the market, gold may again start to offer some signals as to market perceptions of political risk (concerns over the perceived shift in US international standing and risk-averse investors’ questions around the rule of law having motivated some of the initial rise in price).
Interactive investor: calm returns to markets
Richard Hunter, head of markets at interactive investor, says “a sense of calm descended after the precious metal ructions, opening the door for investors to buy on the dip”.
The technical and sentiment driven declines found a floor, which drove a return to a risk-on approach. After all, despite the dip in the gold price, the commodity remains up by 14% this year and by 87% over the last 12 months, which suggests a healthy correction was overdue without necessarily indicating a fundamental change.
FTSE 100 hits record high as miners recover
Britain’s FTSE 100 share index has hit another record high at the start of trading.
With a risk-on mood gripping markets, the Footsie has gained 21 points, or 0.2%, to touch a fresh intraday high of 10,362 points.
This means the index has risen by 4.3% so far this year.
Mining stocks are back in the top risers; gold and metal producer Endeavour has jumped by 5%, followed by rival Fresnillo (+4%).
Copper producer Antofagasta (+2.5%) and Anglo American (+2.3%) are also benefitting from a pick-up in commodity prices.
India’s stock market rallies on US trade deal
India’s stock market has jumped after Narendra Modi and Donald Trump agreed a trade deal.
Trump announced last night that India has agreed to stop buying Russian oil as he announced plans to cut US tariffs on Indian exports.
US tariffs on Indian exports are set to fall from 25% to 18%, the president said, claiming that India would “likewise move forward to reduce their Tariffs and Non Tariff Barriers against the United States, to ZERO”.
Although full details of the deal haven’t been released, the Sensex stock index has jumped by 2.8% so far today.
India’s currency has also strengthened, with the rupee gaining 1.4% to 90.20 per dollar.
Jim Reid, Deutsche Bank’s market strategist, credits the recovery on strong US economic data yesterday:
Markets have seen a huge turnaround over the last 24 hours, with the S&P 500 (+0.54%) closing just shy of its record high, with another +0.25% gain in futures this morning after being over -2% lower than current levels this time yesterday.
The recovery had several drivers, but the biggest was the ISM manufacturing index, which unexpectedly surged to its highest level since 2022. So that led to growing optimism on the 2026 outlook, along with a classic risk-on move.
South Korea’s KOSPI index has also bounced back strongly from hefty losses yesterday.
The KOSPI, which fell over 5% on Monday, has surged by 6.8% today – its biggest daily rise since 24 March 2020.
Nikkei closes at record high
Japan’s Nikkei share average has surged by almost 4% today, amid a wider stock market rally.
The Nikkei 225 rose 3.92% to close at 54,720.66, a record high and its biggest daily gain since October 25, as the rebound in gold and silver helped to calm market nerves.
SpaceX buys xAI in $1.25tn deal
The biggest business news of the morning is that Elon Musk’s SpaceX has acquired his artificial intelligence business xAI for $250bn.
The move consolidates two key part of Musk’s empire, giving the newly merged company a paper valuation of $1.25trn…. as SpaceX prepares to to public later this year.
Received the merger docs for xAI. This is a done deal with spaceX valued at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion. SpaceX now owns xAI. $tsla
— Ross Gerber (@GerberKawasaki) February 2, 2026
The two companies announced the deal on Monday in a statement on SpaceX’s website, saying the merger would form..
“the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform”.
SpaceX, one of the world’s most valuable private companies, will gain xAI properties such as its Grok chatbot and the social media platform X. The acquisition comes as Musk has pursued plans to put datacenters and solar-powered satellites in space as a means of powering artificial intelligence, an immense and exorbitantly expensive undertaking.
Introduction: Gold and silver rally resumes
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.
And welcome to Turnaround Tuesday too. After tumbling on Monday, precious metals and Asia-Pacific stock markets are both recovering today.
Gold’s up 4.5% this morning at $4,877 an ounce, quite a recovery from yesterday’s $4,403oz, while silver’s picked up 6.5% to $84.70.
That still leaves gold 12% shy of last week’s record highs, after its worst day since the early 1980s on Friday, when silver experienced its worst intraday collapse ever.
But it’s possible that the worst of the “metals meltdown” is behind us, after some highly speculative, leveraged traders were driven out of the market by the turbulence of recent days.
Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote, says:
With leveraged speculative positions flushed out, investors may feel they are returning to a freshly cleaned playground, albeit cautiously.
The long-term outlook for gold remains bullish. The factors supporting gold prices since last year remain firmly in place: trade and geopolitical uncertainty persists; G7 debt dynamics look increasingly unsustainable and are likely to worsen — not only in the US with the “Big, Beautiful Bill”, but also in Japan and in Europe amid rising defence spending.
The agenda
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9.45am GMT: Treasury Committee hearing on government’s financial inclusion strategy.
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8:00am GMT: UK grocery inflation figures for January
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3pm GMT: US JOLTS job openings report
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3pm GMT: Chief Secretary to the Treasury to give evidence to Economic Affairs Committee