FTSE 100 Live: Banks fall and AI fear hits as new US tariffs begin

• FTSE 100 falls 16 points to 10,669

• Banks deed by read-across from US concern assemblage falls

• Croda and ConvaTec apical leaderboard aft results

Oxford BioMedica shares dropped 9% arsenic a robust full-year trading update failed to present what immoderate investors were truly waiting for: an update connected a imaginable takeover attack from backstage equity elephantine EQT.

With the enactment up oregon unopen up deadline falling connected 25 February, the market's patience is moving thin.

The compartment and cistron therapy declaration shaper reported 2025 revenues astatine the apical extremity of guidance, astatine £166-169 million, representing maturation of astir 30% connected the anterior year.

"This is simply a robust update," said Miles Dixon astatine Peel Hunt, "but with bid speculation inactive successful the air, we bash not expect determination to beryllium overmuch stock terms question today."

The FTSE 100 seems to beryllium holding astatine a tiny shortage of conscionable implicit 20 points, arsenic determination are a fig of heavyweight fallers, particularly banks.

Leading the fallers are Rentokil Initial, down 2.8%; Fresnillo, down 2.3%; Barclays, down 2%; RELX, down 1.6%, Lloyds Banking and NatWest Group, some down astir 1.4%; and Rolls-Royce, down 1.3%. HSBC, Standard Chartered are besides down implicit 1%.

Waiting for much explanations of wherefore the banks are down, but it's worthy noting that Capital One, American Express, Mastercard and Visa each had large falls overnight.

Jim Reid astatine Deutsche Bank notes that those names were mentioned successful the a Citrini Research memo from past week, "The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis", outlining a hypothetical script successful which AI adoption drives the US unemployment complaint into treble digits by mid 2028.

"The enactment had been forwarded to maine astir 10 times precocious past week and was ubiquitous crossed my societal media feeds, truthful it was thing of a astonishment to spot it cited arsenic the catalyst for the abrupt mid day merchantability disconnected successful London," says Reid.

"As with Matt Schumer’s viral 'Something large is happening' piece a fewer weeks agone — which was besides linked to important equity losses — the statement leans heavy connected communicative and emotion alternatively than hard evidence. That doesn’t mean it volition yet beryllium wrong, but successful some cases the vibes to substance ratio is undeniably high. I’ll halt there, earlier anyone accuses my ain probe of the aforesaid thing."

Anyhow, there's been a renewed sell-off successful stocks perceived to beryllium astatine hazard from AI disruption yesterday and again today, with bundle and information stocks again affected, including Workday, Adobe and Oracle.