سعر النفط يلامس 95 دولاراً مع تصاعد الصراع الأمريكي الإيراني؛ وتضخم المملكة المتحدة يهدأ أسرع من المتوقع

From 4h ago 11.49 CEST Oil price touches $95 as US-Iran conflict escalates Oil prices are climbing further this morning as investors grow fearful around the impact of the war in the Middle East on global supply. Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, is up 4.6% to $95.16 a barrel, its highest point in six weeks. Oil prices have risen by abut 20% this month as Washington and Tehran have exchanged fire. Last night the US carried out its eleventh night of consecutive strikes against Iran, while the Iran-backed Houthi movement has threatened a naval blockade on Saudi Arabian ports. Kathleen Brooks, of the broker XTB, notes the sharp rise today comes after Donald Trump said he was not interested in holding talks with Iran last night. double quotation mark The rise in the oil price comes after President Trump played down the prospect of fresh talks with Iran. He also said that he would escalate tensions even further and will hit Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, which contains an underground nuclear site. …Reports suggest that US allies in the Gulf are getting tired of US strikes on Iran due to their ineffectiveness, however, there is no immediate solution to break the impasse. Should there be a wider war to bring Iran to its knees, or should the two sides commit to fresh peace talks? Markets would likely prefer fresh peace talks, especially now that the crisis is impacting global oil flows beyond the Strait of Hormuz. There are signs that tankers are avoiding or slowing down their approach to Bab El-Mandeb Strait near Yemen, after the Houthis threatened attacks on cargo ships in alliance with Iran. For now the Red Sea remains operational, but global supply chains are increasingly coming under threat as escalations in the conflict heat up. This will keep upward pressure on global supply chains, and inflation risks are ramping up every day this conflict escalates. Middle East crisis live: US renews strikes on Iran as Trump threatens to attack nuclear site ‘very heavily’ Read more Share Updated at 11.59 CEST

1h ago 14.03 CEST UK bond yields are also rising across the curve today, as higher oil prices push investors to prepare for elevated interest rates this year. The 10-year gilt yield has risen by about 3 basis points to 5.06%, its highest level since May. The equivalent 10-year yield in the eurozone has also risen by about 2 basis points to 3.19%. Share Updated at 14.04 CEST

1h ago 13.56 CEST US stock futures are slipping this afternoon, as investors look cautiously ahead to big tech earnings this week. The S&P 500 index is poised to fall 0.2% later this afternoon when the US market opens, while futures for the tech heavy Nasdaq are down 0.6%. Alphabet and Tesla will report their quarterly earnings this evening. Share

2h ago 13.22 CEST London house prices fall for ninth month in a row House prices in London dropped 3.7% year-on-year in May, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics, the ninth month in a row where there has been an annual fall in the capital. London was the only region in England to record a fall in house prices, with the average across the UK rising by 2.7%. That did however mark a deceleration from April, when prices rose by 3.8%. The biggest falls in London were in the inner parts of the city, such as Westminster and Tower Hamlets, the ONS said. View image in fullscreen Annual house price inflation, English regions, May 2026 Illustration: Office for National Statistics The ONS did however note that the figures were affected by changes to stamp duty in April 2025, which brought forward several property transactions as homebuyers sought to get ahead of the tax change deadline. Share Updated at 13.36 CEST

3h ago 12.51 CEST Norway’s national oil company profits double to $11.5bn amid war on Iran Kalyeena Makortoff Profits at Norway’s state oil company nearly doubled to $11.5bn (£8.6bn) in the three months to the end of June as the jump in oil and gas prices caused by the war against Iran boosted earnings. Equinor benefited from a decision to increase oil and gas production at the start of the conflict, filling a gap in the market after a near-halt to shipping through the strait of Hormuz caused Gulf oil flows to slump. Equinor also profited from the jump in oil prices. Fears over a drop in global supplies left Brent crude prices swinging between $75 and more than $100 a barrel between April and June this year. That compares with roughly $60 to $70 during the same period last year. Norway’s national oil company profits double to $11.5bn amid war on Iran Read more Share

3h ago 12.33 CEST Prologis tables 'best and final' £14bn offer for Segro Prologis, the US property group, is still pursuing the FTSE 100 warehouse landlord Segro. It has announced its “best and final” offer, which values the business at about £14bn. The offer is made up of 0.0920 new Prologis shares for each Segro share and a partial cash alternative of up to £3.5bn. The fourth offer by Prologis comes just two days after Segro rejected its previous £13.5bn bid. The FTSE 100 company has also come under pressure from one of its biggest investors, Norges Bank, which said yesterday that the proposal “merits consideration”. Prologis said in a statement that its proposal “is final and will not be increased”. Dan Letter, the chief executive of Prologis, said: double quotation mark There is no doubt a combination of both companies would deliver meaningful value. We have listened to feedback from shareholders and this morning, we have improved our proposal to make a compelling offer to the Segro Board. We run Prologis with discipline and this is our best and final offer. Segro shares are up 3.8% this morning. Share

3h ago 12.21 CEST Oil has breached the $95 a barrel mark today – but some analysts have predicted that the price could rise to more than $120 by the end of the year if disruptions at the strait of Hormuz continue. Analysts at the US bank Goldman Sachs sent out a note on Monday saying that Brent crude could rise above $120 by the fourth quarter, although it is not their base case assumption, Bloomberg reported. Oil prices have not been above $100 a barrel since May, and topped $126 at the end of April. Share Updated at 12.21 CEST

4h ago 11.49 CEST Oil price touches $95 as US-Iran conflict escalates Oil prices are climbing further this morning as investors grow fearful around the impact of the war in the Middle East on global supply. Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, is up 4.6% to $95.16 a barrel, its highest point in six weeks. Oil prices have risen by abut 20% this month as Washington and Tehran have exchanged fire. Last night the US carried out its eleventh night of consecutive strikes against Iran, while the Iran-backed Houthi movement has threatened a naval blockade on Saudi Arabian ports. Kathleen Brooks, of the broker XTB, notes the sharp rise today comes after Donald Trump said he was not interested in holding talks with Iran last night. double quotation mark The rise in the oil price comes after President Trump played down the prospect of fresh talks with Iran. He also said that he would escalate tensions even further and will hit Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, which contains an underground nuclear site. …Reports suggest that US allies in the Gulf are getting tired of US strikes on Iran due to their ineffectiveness, however, there is no immediate solution to break the impasse. Should there be a wider war to bring Iran to its knees, or should the two sides commit to fresh peace talks? Markets would likely prefer fresh peace talks, especially now that the crisis is impacting global oil flows beyond the Strait of Hormuz. There are signs that tankers are avoiding or slowing down their approach to Bab El-Mandeb Strait near Yemen, after the Houthis threatened attacks on cargo ships in alliance with Iran. For now the Red Sea remains operational, but global supply chains are increasingly coming under threat as escalations in the conflict heat up. This will keep upward pressure on global supply chains, and inflation risks are ramping up every day this conflict escalates. Middle East crisis live: US renews strikes on Iran as Trump threatens to attack nuclear site ‘very heavily’ Read more Share Updated at 11.59 CEST

4h ago 11.29 CEST OpenAI says its models went rogue and hacked startup in ‘unprecedented incident’ Dan Milmo OpenAI has revealed an autonomous AI agent powered by its technology went rogue during a test, accessed the open web and hacked a prominent startup by itself in an “unprecedented incident”. The company behind ChatGPT said Hugging Face had detected and contained the agent – an AI tool designed to carry out tasks without human assistance – which had entered its systems. OpenAI said; double quotation mark We consider this incident to be an unprecedented cyber incident, involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities. The company warned that it expected this type of incident to become more commonplace as models – the technology that underpins AI tools such as chatbots and agents – become more capable. OpenAI says its models went rogue and hacked startup in ‘unprecedented incident’ Read more Share

4h ago 11.10 CEST Bloomsbury gets slice of $1.5bn Anthropic copyright settlement Bloomsbury has said it will receive a share of the $1.5bn US court settlement that resolves claims Anthropic used copyrighted books to train its AI models without paying for the content. The company said in a statement today: double quotation mark Bloomsbury confirms that it is among the beneficiaries of the Anthropic settlement and will receive settlement spread over several payments estimated to start in the second half of the financial year. The court has listed 14,087 Bloomsbury titles as within the settlement and the proposed settlement is for about $3,000 for each work… to be divided equally between the author and the publisher. Analysts at the broker Peel Hunt estimated that the company wi