Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on October 10, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleLondon stocks fell as Trump heightened trade tensions with China, impacting global markets and leading to a decline in the FTSE 100.
(Reuters) -British stocks slumped on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened a "massive increase" in tariffs on Chinese goods, setting off a broad equities selloff in the final minutes of trading.
The FTSE 100 closed down 0.9% to 9,427.47 points. The pullback pushed the blue-chip index into the red for the week by 0.67%.
The mid-cap index was down 1.14% on Friday and also recorded a weekly loss of 1.8%.
Trump also threatened to cancel a planned meeting with China's President Xi Jinping over a rare earths dispute, escalating trade tensions between the world's two largest economies.
The renewed trade friction raised concerns about global growth, sending the U.S. benchmark S&P 500 index down 1.8%.
Hopes for easy U.S. monetary policy and easing trade worries have helped major equity bourses rally to all-time highs, including the UK's blue-chip index, which scaled a new peak on Wednesday.
In the market, the oil and gas sector was the biggest drag, down 2.9% as oil prices declined to multi-month lows on Friday. [O/R]
Shell and BP were the biggest weights on the FTSE 100 with 2.9% and 2.8% declines, respectively.
The aerospace and defence sector fell 1.6%. Rolls-Royce fell 1.4%, while BAE Systems and Melrose lost 1.6% and 2.6% respectively.
Resource-linked sectors also took a hit, with precious and industrial metal miners down 1.8% and 2.3%, respectively, tracking a dip in gold and copper prices. [GOL/] [MET/L]
Endeavour Mining and Glencore were among the worst performers on the FTSE 100, as investors booked some profits after a recent rally.
Among other stocks, Ibstock lost 4%, hitting its lowest level in over nine years, after the bricks and concrete maker warned its annual profit would fall below expectations.
The stock was among the worst performers on the domestically focussed FTSE 250 and weighed on the broader construction sector, which was down 0.6%.
Conversely, consumer staples stocks saw gains, with beverages companies up moderately, and personal care, drug and grocery companies up 0.9%.
(Reporting by Sanchayaita Roy, Avinash P and Purvi Agarwal; Editing by Shreya Biswas, Chris Reese and Vijay Kishore)
The FTSE 100 is a stock market index that represents the 100 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, based on market capitalization.
A blue-chip stock refers to shares in a large, well-established, and financially sound company that has operated for many years and is considered a safe investment.
Global growth refers to the increase in economic activity and output across the world, often measured by the growth of global GDP.
Explore more articles in the Finance category
