Key events
UK energy cap to rise slightly in January
Newsflash: Hopes for a small fall in energy bills across Great Britain have been dashed.
Regulator Ofgem has just announced that from 1 January to 31 March 2026 there will be a small monthly increase of 28 pence on the price of energy for a typical household who use electricity and gas and pay by Direct Debit.
As flagged in the introduction, forecasters had expected a 1% drop in the cap which would have saved a typical household £22 per year.
Ofgem says:
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Compared to the level between January and March 2025, it is 1% or £20 lower.
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Year on year when adjusted for inflation the new cap is 2% or £37 lower than the same period in 2025.
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The annual cost for people who use electricity and gas and pay by Direct Debit would be £1,758 per year (0.2%).
AI bubble fears return as Wall Street falls back from short-lived rally
There may be jitters in the European markets today, after losses on Wall Street last night.
Fears of a growing bubble around the artificial intelligence frenzy resurfaced yesterday, less than 24 hours after strong results from chipmaker Nvidia sparked a rally.
Wall Street initially rose after Nvidia, the world’s largest public company, reassured investors of strong demand for its advanced data center chips. But the relief dissipated, and technology stocks at the heart of the AI boom came under pressure.
The benchmark S&P 500 closed down 1.6%, and the Dow Jones industrial average closed down 0.8% in New York. The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite closed down 2.2%.
The futures market indicates we’ll see losses in London when trading begins at 8am.
Introduction: Public finances, retail sales and price cap coming up
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.
We’re about to get the final healthcheck on the UK economy ahead of next week’s budget.
The latest public finances are expected to show the UK borrowed around £15bn in October to cover the shortfall between tax receipts and spending. Economists will scrutinise the data to see whether the government has fallen further off course against the forecasts set in March.
New retail sales data is also due, and show whether consumers were hit by pre-budget caution. The City expects retail sales were flat month-on-month in October, but up 1.5% compared with a year ago.
And in a flurry of early morning news, energy regulator Ofgem is about to set the latest price cap on bills across Great Britain.
Households may get a little respite from rising costs – the cap is expected to drop by around 1% from January due to lower wholesale gas prices. That would lower the average dual-fuel bill for a typical household to £1,733 a year, down £22, forecaster Cornwall Insight has said.
The agenda
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7am GMT: UK public finances for October
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7am GMT: UK retail sales for October
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7am GMT: UK energy price cap for January-March 2026 to be set
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8am GMT: Eurozone flash PMI economic data
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9:30am GMT: UK flash PMI economic data
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3.40pm GMT: Bank of England chief economistHuw Pill panellist in Zurich on ‘the future of the world’s leading currencies’
