FTSE 100 falls back from record high amid AI worries; gold heads for best day since 2008 – as it happened

And finally, the FTSE 100 has closed down 27 points or 0.26% at 10,314, away from the record high hit this morning.Although miners and precious metal producers rallied, as the gold and silver price jumped, the index was dragged down by Relx (-14.3%) and the London Stock Exchange Group (-12.8%), as investors reacted to US artificial intelligence firm Anthropic unveileing a tool for companies’ in-house lawyers

What are the odds? The RBA has raised interest rates – for no real reason other than to meet the desires of speculators | Greg Jericho

Has there been an interest rate rise more desired by some economists and commentators despite no real reason, than the one pushed for on Tuesday? Alas, the Reserve Bank listened to the noise and felt compelled to raise the cash rate to 3.85%, but one wonders if they listened more to the noise of the commentariat than the data.In Tuesday’s announcement, the RBA monetary policy board barely changed anything from its December statement.In December the board thought: “While inflation has fallen substantially since its peak in 2022, it has picked up more recently”. Now it says: “While inflation has fallen substantially since its peak in 2022, it picked up materially in the second half of 2025

UK shoppers buy more fruit and yoghurt in healthy start to 2026

Britons started 2026 by buying more healthy food such as fruit and yoghurt as they attempted to hit new year health goals, while grocery price inflation eased to the lowest level since April, research has shown.Annual grocery inflation fell back to 4% in the four weeks to 25 January from 4.7% in December, offering some relief for shoppers, according to a monthly snapshot of the grocery sector from the research company Worldpanel by Numerator.Consumers turned to healthy eating, it said, with sales volumes of fresh fruit and dried pulses up 6% year on year, while fresh fish was up 5%, poultry 3% and chilled yoghurt 4%. Cottage cheese sales jumped by 50% and it was bought by 2

Barnsley rebranded UK’s first ‘tech town’ as US giants join AI push

In 2002 Barnsley toyed with a redesign as a Tuscan hill village as it sought out a brighter post-industrial future. In 2021 it adopted the airily vague slogan “the place of possibilities”. Now it is trying a different image: Britain’s first “tech town”.The technology secretary, Liz Kendall, has anointed the South Yorkshire community as a trailblazer for “how AI can improve everyday life” in the UK.In the latest move in Labour’s drive to inject AI into Britain’s bloodstream, the government has announced four US tech companies – Microsoft, Google, Cisco and Adobe – have agreed to help as the council pushes to apply AI to local schools, hospitals, GPs and businesses in Barnsley, an area of South Yorkshire which has struggled with unemployment and deprivation since the coal pits closed

US jobs report delayed again amid government shutdown

The US’s closely watched jobs report will once again be delayed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced on Monday, amid a government shutdown.The January 2026 jobs report, originally scheduled to be released on Friday, will be rescheduled when federal funding resumes. Data collection for the report has been completed, but the shutdown has forced a delay to releasing the report, which will provide crucial jobs data on the US labor market following the weakest year for job growth since 2020, with the addition of only 584,000 jobs in 2025 compared with 2 million in 2024.“The Employment Situation release for January 2026 will not be released as scheduled on Friday, February 6, 2026. The release will be rescheduled upon the resumption of government funding,” Emily Liddel, associate commissioner of the BLS, said in a statement

Gold and silver prices seesaw as FTSE 100 hits record high

Gold and silver prices seesawed on Monday, after a “meltdown” in the metals market deepened and rattled investors around the world.Gold prices tumbled by as much as 8% to $4,465 an ounce on Monday, ending a run of record highs that took it to nearly $5,600 last week. It later recovered some ground, but was still down by 3.5% at $4,700 in afternoon trading.Silver fell by as much as 7%, after a 30% slump on Friday, before recovering slightly to $79