Investment - Articles - UK higher at the open but oil rally runs out of steam

Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown: “UK stocks opened higher this morning, tracking a reasonably positive start across most of Europe. With few major catalysts on the calendar, trading is likely to stay range-bound, as investors digest results from troubled housebuilder Vistry and a slightly soft trading update from BP.

US markets had a choppy session last night. Well-behaved inflation gave an early boost, with core CPI coming in at 2.6% versus the 2.7% expected, supporting hopes for at least two rate cuts this year. Bond yields dipped on the news, but equities couldn’t hold their morning gains, finishing the day mostly flat, as the S&P closed just shy of a record high. Energy stocks shone on rising crude prices amid Middle East tensions, while banks lagged after JP Morgan’s earnings beat was overshadowed by concerns over potential rate caps on credit cards.

Software giant Salesforce was the biggest drag on the US market yesterday, tumbling 7% despite no company-specific news. The sell-off appears linked to buzz around Anthropic’s new “Claude Cowork” tool, which can connect to apps like Slack and automate complex tasks with simple prompts - raising fears that the value proposition for traditional software products could erode over time. Enterprise software was already under pressure last year as investors worried that AI could upend the traditional “pay-per-seat” model for big software names. With those concerns still lingering, sentiment doesn’t look ready to rebound just yet.

Oil prices have met their match with Brent down 0.7% this morning, ending a four-day rally as Venezuela resumed exports under a new deal with the US. The pullback was limited, though, with prices still near three-month highs amid mounting supply risks from Iran, where protests and cancelled talks with Washington threaten roughly 3.3 million barrels per day of output.”