The latest from London: Gloomy Thursday

Investors’ worries about inflation and rate hikes are building up this week. Yesterday, fresh data showed that the U.S. homebuilding sector was hampered by shortages of labour and material, along with margin pressure due to higher costs. This comes after strong job and inflation data in the US and UK.

As a result, the FTSE 100 is down again today. Lower commodity prices hit oil companies, with Royal Dutch Shell and BP losing more than 1% each.

Royal Mail rose 4.8% after posting strong first-half results and raising its full-year earnings guidance.

 

Things to read today:

The Brexit stand-off: Boris Johnson’s Christmas truce (Financial Times)

Visa Tumbles on Amazon Ban in U.K. as Fight on Card Fees Expands (Bloomberg)