Aceite, gas y precios de los costos de endeudamiento del gobierno del Reino Unido suben a medida que las tensiones en Oriente Medio aumentan

Crude oil prices have risen to a four-year high and natural gas prices have also increased, as tensions ratcheted higher in the Middle East.

Brent crude is up 3% at $85.78 a barrel.

UK government borrowing costs have also gone up, with the 10-year gilt yield pushing through 5%.

Meanwhile, US inflation cooled more than expected to an annual rate of 3.5% in June when energy prices fell sharply due to the US-Iran ceasefire – which Donald Trump declared over last week.

That's it for today, folks. Thanks for reading! Back tomorrow. -JK

Andy Burnham needs to be bolder with business rates reform – and introduce a sales tax for online sellers – if he is to support local high streets, according to a new campaign group.

Real Rates Reform Alliance, is backed by the UKHospitality trade body, which represents hotels, pubs and restaurants, the Institute of Directors, the Association of Tow and City Management, the Music Venue Trust, the British Independent Retailers Association and Heart of London Business Alliance, which together
represent over 28,000 businesses and business leaders.

It said it had written to Burnham and called on him to meet with them to discuss bringing in a hybrid business rate system that would introduce a levy of 2% on all online sales, enabling a cut of 37% for businesses with physical premises.

Ros Morgan, the chief executive of Heart of London Business Alliance and chair of the
Real Rates Reform Alliance, said:

These findings expose the real-world consequences of a business rates system that is broken, unsustainable and no longer fit for purpose. Businesses are being forced to increase prices for customers, delay investment and cut jobs simply to cope with an outdated tax that bears little relation to today's economy.

Business rates should support growth, not hold it back. Andy Burnham has already acknowledged the current system isn't fair and talked about levelling the playing field between online and some physical businesses. We want him to go further.

Shares in IBM plunged more than 20% after it issued a profit warning.

The US technology company said it had “faltered†in keeping pace with a shift in corporate spending from software â towards data-centre infrastructure, and forecast second-quarter revenue below estimates, in a sign of the impact of AI on the â sector.

The warning triggered â a near-24% ​slump in IBM's shares and a selloff in the broader software sector. Microsoft, ServiceNow, Salesforce and Intuit fell between 3% and 5%.

Software investors have long been on edge over fears that AI tools capable â of automating routine work could pose an existential threat to the industry.

Chief executive Arvind Krishna said in a letter to investors:

In the last ‌few weeks of June, we saw clients shift their quarterly capex [capital expenditure] spend toward servers, storage, and memory purchases to secure supply-constrained infrastructure ahead of expected price increases.

While we anticipated some supply-chain related impact in our expectations, we did not anticipate the ‌magnitude of the capex reprioritization.

He added that the company had “faltered†in adapting quickly enough and that “numerous large deals†had failed to ​close as expected.

The company expects revenue of $17.2bn for the second quarter, compared with the $17.86bn forecast by analysts.

Adjusted earnings per share is expected to be $2.93, compared with analysts' estimate of $3.02.

Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG Group, said:

This is â an ugly moment for IBM and software stocks… the big question will ​be how long ​the shift to infrastructure and cybersecurity ​lasts.

A ​few more months ‌might be bearable, ​but more ​than that and serious questions will be asked all over again about software stocks.

The open on Wall Street was mixed, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq rising, while the Dow Jones fell.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq climbed nearly 130 points, or 0.5%, after the opening bell, while the S&P 5 rose almost 10 points, or 0.1%. The Dow lost 121 points, or 0.2%.

The FTSE 100 index has turned positive, trading 36 points, or 0.35%, higher at 10,535. Italy's FTSE MiB edged 0.1% higher while the German, French and Spanish indices dropped between 0.2% and 0.3%.

The pound has gained against the dollar today, as cooling US inflation means traders are scaling back their interest rate bets.

This could lower the return on savings and bonds, and make assets less attractive to international investors.

Sterling rose nearly 0.5% to $1.3408 by early afternoon.

Here is our full story on US inflation:

Inflation cooled to an annual rate of 3.5% in June as the brief US-Iran ceasefire, which has since ended, brought energy prices down, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The consumer price index (CPI), which measures a basket of goods and services, has been elevated since the start of the war, largely because of higher energy prices. After mostly staying under 3% since mid-2024, CPI reached a three-year high of 4.2% in May – up from 2.4% in February. Stripping out volatile energy and food prices, core inflation decreased slightly to 2.6%.

Though the US-Iran peace agreement brought some relief to energy prices, recent strikes between the two countries have sent oil prices climbing again. Donald Trump said on Monday that the strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world's oil and gas typically passes through, will remain open “with or without Iran†and claimed that the US will reinstate its blockade of Iranian ports.

Neil Birrell, chief investment officer at the investment advice firm Premier Miton, said:

Volatile energy prices don't make predicting inflation any easier or provide any clues on the trend. However, oil prices were lower through June and remain well below recent highs, helping bring down the headline US CPI number by more than expected.

The Fed won't read too much into one data set, but this will please its new Chair and those looking for a softer policy stance.

Patrick O'Donnell, chief investment strategist at Omnis Investments, said:

The year-over-year measure of core CPI came in lower than expected today. With the labour market data seemingly running not too hot or cold, depending on what data series you look at, inflation data will be the key determinant of monetary policy decisions.

The FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] is clearly divided but with the apparent end of the ceasefire last week, oil has started moving higher once more, and if this move extends, it could be enough for those members of the FOMC who are sympathetic to the view of a hike, over the line anyway. There may be a brief pause in the trend of higher nominal and real [bond] yields but this report is unlikely to turn it around. It remains to be seen at what level this begins to impact the AI trade in equities.

Inflation in the US has fallen more than expected to an annual rate of 3.5%, as energy prices fell sharply last month after a US-Iran ceasefire and talks for a permanent peace deal.

The annual change in the consumer prices index was down from 4.2% in May, according to the Labor Department. Economists had predicted 3.8%.

On a monthly basis, consumer prices fell by 0.4%, more than the 0.1% drop forecast by analysts.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, core CPI was 2.6%, less than the forecast 2.8% rate.

Futures for the S&P 500 index turned positive, pointing to a higher open later, as the data fuelled expectations that the Federal Reserve may not be as hawkish as previously thought.

However, in recent days oil prices have risen to a four-week high, with Brent now trading at $86.9 a barrel.

Despite the spike in UK government bond yields today, Joe Maher, markets economist at Capital Economics, said the firm expects yields to come down over the coming year.

Despite incoming PM Burnham facing the tricky task of maintaining investor confidence against a fragile fiscal backdrop and the potential for a prolonged US-Iran conflict, we expect gilt yields to fall over the next year as weak economic activity prompts the Bank of England to slash interest rates.

Energy prices, not politics, have been the main driver of Gilt yields of late. And gilts have been more sensitive than most sovereign bonds: oil prices have been a key driver of the spread, for example, between US and UK sovereign bond yields.

If investors were becoming more worried about Burnham's policies, spreads on UK sovereign credit default swaps, the most direct market-based measure of fiscal risk, would probably have risen, but they have barely budged. The pound has also rallied versus the euro since Starmer resigned despite interest rate differentials moving against it.

The US government has already paid back tens of billions of dollars in tariffs it collected before the supreme court ruled them illegal, according to budget figures released on Monday.

Tariffs – taxes on imported goods – have been a key part of Donald Trump's economic plan since he took office again last year.

In February the supreme court shut down a big chunk of the extra tariffs Trump had ordered, forcing the government to return money to the companies that had paid them.

According to the budget data, the US has paid out $81bn (£61bn) in tariff refunds so far this fiscal year, which started in October 2025, compared with $5bn during the same period last year.

A Treasury department official said the spike was almost entirely because of the supreme court decision, with most of the refunds happening in May and June.

Trump had pitched the tariffs as a catch-all fix for the economy, bringing factories back to the US, getting better trade deals and closing the deficit in the federal budget.

But the deficit, which had become a little smaller last year thanks to the tariff income, is now growing again. It hit $1.367tn in the first nine months of the fiscal year, up 2%.

The US spent more than $1tn just on paying interest on its debt, up 14%, and military spending climbed 5% because of the war in the Middle East.

The US administration's current temporary 10% global tariff is due to expire on 24 July, but the White House is preparing new duties over what it sees as lax enforcement of anti-forced labour laws and excess industrial capacity.

The latest proposal could affect leading partners including the UK, Japan, India, Taiwan and China, and would enable Trump to skirt previous court-imposed limits on his protectionist agenda. The new tariff rates are expected to be between 10% and 12.5%. The US has also threatened to impose fresh levies of 25% on Brazil.

Here are Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey's comments in full on the Middle East conflict.

He said

It seems to me that the situation remained unstable, and the ceasefire was fragile, suddenly that's come to pass, obviously. I certainly don't feel qualified to judge how long this is going to go on for in terms of this resumption of hostilities and how it's going to end. But it underlines that this is going to be an unstable process for the foreseeable future.

Now energy prices have come down. As of a week ago, they were sitting a bit above where they were before the crisis. They're now somewhat further above, but they're… well down on their peak. We are also seeing continued fairly soft evidence on the pass through into UK prices. But we'll get another inflation number next week.

The one other caveat I would add, which I don't think gets enough coverage, is that although crude oil prices have come down, the prices of refined products have not come down as much. So we're talking about things like gasoline and diesel at this point, which of course are the end product.