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Slowest fall in UK construction output since January, but housebuilding remains weak
Construction activity across the UK remained in decline last month, but the downturn was the least pronounced since the start of the year, according to a closely-watched survey.
The purchasing managers’ index for construction from S&P Global rose to an eight-month high of 46.1 in September from 44.3 in August, but remained well below the 50 mark that separates growth from contraction. It has been in decline since January last year.
A sharp downturn in housebuilding eased slightly but it remained the weakest area, followed by civil engineering, while commercial work showed only a small decline.
Tim Moore, economics director at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said:
The downturn in UK construction output was the least marked since January. All three sub-sectors have seen a degree of stabilisation relative to the rapid declines reported in the second quarter of 2026. In September, commercial building work saw its smallest fall in activity since May 2025. House building was again the weakest performer as rising borrowing costs and unfavourable market conditions weighed on output.
Total new orders were relatively subdued in September as construction firms reported longer sales conversion cycles and clients deferred decision-making on major projects.
The new orders measure fell to a three-month low of 45.9 from 47.7, amid subdued demand, geopolitical tensions and rising input costs.
Companies’ costs rose at their slowest rate since the outbreak of the Iran war in late February, but Moore said this was unlikely to last due to higher energy and transport costs.
Business optimism was the weakest since May.
S&P Global said its all-sector PMI survey, which includes data for services, manufacturing and construction, slipped to a three-month low of 51.5 in September from 51.8.
Euro reverses losses and rises against dollar
The euro has reversed earlier losses and is now trading higher against the dollar, after sinking to the lowest level since May 2025 on Monday, amid worries over France’s debt position and political uncertainty.
Reversing a 0.13% drop in early European trading, the single currency gained 0.2% to $1.1245.
In oil markets, Brent crude is now down 1.4% at $98.85 a barrel, falling further below $100 a barrel.
Irish budget to address soaring price of home heating oil today
Lisa O’Carroll
Soaring prices of home heating oil are expected to be addressed in today’s budget in Dublin with more than 700,000 homes, mostly in rural Ireland dependent on kerosene to heat their homes, reports my colleague Lisa O’Carroll from Brussels.
Figures from the government’s Central Statistics office last week showed the cost of home heating fuel had gone up 44% in the last year compared to petrol which up 9% and diesel by 15%.
On Friday, the G7 countries announced they would release 100m barrels of oil and diesel to ease supply as prices continue to be impacted by Donald Trump’s war on Iran.
While some oil is expected to be released within the next fortnight, a spokesperson for the EU said the allocations would be made by the International Energy Agency.
A spokesperson said the EU stood ready to convent an oil coordination group and energy task force to help member states bid for the oil.
Insurers could be on the hook for claims from AI agents going rogue
Also on the insurance front, insurers could be on the hook for multimillion-dollar claims related to AI agents going rogue.
Top bosses such as OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei could be held liable for the actions of their models, the Financial Times reported.
Breaches caused by autonomous AI agents breaking free of their parent companies’ controls, such as OpenAI’s hacking of the startup Hugging Face, have prompted insurers and their lawyers to study whether they could face potential lawsuits and damages.
Insurance broker Aon analysed more than 300 AI-related legal cases and found that insurers could be liable for claims under policies covering crime, intellectual property, media liability, cyber security, and technology errors and omissions, the FT said.
Top industry figures also said AI executives could be sued for the actions of models, with insurers potentially facing claims under “directors and officers” insurance policies, which cover executives if they are sued over their decisions or statements.
Lego fraudster among high-profile insurance fraud claims in 2025
A fraudster who submitted a series of false home insurance claims for supposedly stolen Lego sets and ended up in jail was one of several high-profile bogus claims last year.
Insurers uncovered £1.34bn worth of fraudulent claims in 2025, a 14% increase on the £1.18bn detected in 2024, according to the Association of British Insurers.
The lego fraudster was sentenced to 28 months’ imprisonment late last year after an investigation uncovered the claims were fabricated, following an investigation by the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED).
Between May 2021 and January 2022, Matthew Johnson, of Misterton, submitted a number of false claims to Axa Insurance, relating to alleged burglaries at properties in Shetland and Goole. The claims included high-value items such as MacBooks, televisions, gaming consoles, fishing equipment, and large quantities of collectible Lego sets. In total, Johnson received over £14,000 in insurance payouts across four separate claims.
Mark Allen, head of fraud and financial crime at the ABI, said:
Insurance fraud pushes up costs for everyone, making it more important than ever that as an industry, we continue to work together to detect, prevent and deter fraud across all lines.
Anyone considering committing insurance fraud should be under no illusion – it’s a serious crime with serious consequences, including a criminal conviction and imprisonment.
While the number of detected fraudulent claims fell by 2.7% to 93,900 cases, the value of scams rose sharply, in a sign of its growing scale and sophistication, the ABI said.
The average value of a fraudulent claim reached £14,300 last year – the second-highest level on record, just below the peak of £14,600 recorded in 2022.
Motor insurance was once again the area with the highest level of claims fraud, accounting for 55% of all cases. With 51,900 fraudulent motor claims worth £625m uncovered last year, the figures point to fewer but more costly cases. The average value rose to £12,000, the second-highest level since 2015.
A fraudster who orchestrated staged motor collisions using women he met online was sentenced after running a deliberate “crash for cash” scheme designed to generate fraudulent insurance claims.
Detective chief inspector Simon Klust, head of the insurance fraud enforcement department at the City of London Police, said:
Insurance fraud is not a victimless crime and those who commit it increase the cost of premiums for honest customers.
These figures show that, on average, more than 250 fraudulent insurance claims are detected each day, and this is unfortunately likely to be just the tip of the iceberg.
In property insurance, the number of detected fraudulent claims fell by 6.2% to 17,700, while their total value rose by 3.4% to £201m – bringing the average value to a record high of £11,400.
Travel recorded the sharpest increase in volume. Investigators uncovered a £300,000 travel insurance scam involving multiple fake identities, fabricated medical documents and websites submitted to support bogus medical emergency claims.
Exaggerated loss remains the most common type of fraud, with 26,900 cases identified. This is when someone deliberately increases the cost of a claim beyond its true value.
Ursula Jallow, director at the Insurance Fraud Bureau , said:
Insurance fraud is devastating. It costs honest consumers when times are already tough.
If anyone has information about insurance fraud, they can report it confidentially through our free CheatLine service.
Clarkson shares jump after profit upgrade amid ‘record’ freight rates in some areas
Shares in Clarkson jumped after the world’s largest shipping services provider upgraded its profit forecast, boosted by elevated freight rates amid geopolitical tensions.
While the environment remains “very volatile,” the company said it expected underlying profit before tax this year to be “not less than £135m” – above analysts’ predictions of £115.2m, and 49% higher than last year.
The Clarkson share price rose 6.8% on the news.
Higher freight rates triggered by the Middle East conflict and the strait of Hormuz closure have benefited the company, which posted record first-half profits in August.
The company reported strong trading in August and September, and said it had seen “record freight rates” in some areas. Its broking division delivered revenues significantly ahead of previous estimates, it said.
The ongoing geopolitical complexity has created further volatility across commodity and freight markets, accordingly in some areas we have seen record freight rates and this has also then passed through to asset prices.
European stock markets rise while government bond yields retreat
European shares are rising while government bond yields retreated, after soaring to multi-decade highs last week.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 index rose 0.8%, on track for a third session of share gains. In London, the FTSE 100 index advanced 82 points, or 0.8%, to 10,580.
The Danish biotech company Genmab is leading gains, up 8.1%, after it said that their blood cancer drug combination with US drugmaker AbbVie reduced the risk of disease progression or death in a late-stage clinical study.
Epcoritamab, jointly developed by the two companies to treat patients newly diagnosed with a type of lymphoma, is an immune-based therapy that helps the body’s T cells attack cancer cells
The combination treatment reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 51% in newly diagnosed patients compared with the current standard treatment, R-CHOP, alone.
Germany’s Dax rose 0.7%, France’s CAC added 0.5%, Italy’s FTSE MiB gained 1.1% and Spain’s Ibex climbed 0.9%.
On bond markets, the UK’s 10-year benchmark gilt yield dropped 6.5 basis points to 5.36%, while the 30-year yield fell a similar amount to 5.88%, bringing some relief to Andy Burnham’s government ahead of the budget on 28 October.
Brent crude drops below $100 a barrel after Saudi oil price cut
Oil prices have continued to fall, dropping below $100 a barrel.
Brent crude, the global benchmark, fell as low as $99.38 a barrel, and is now at $99.54 a barrel, down 0.8%. US light crude dropped more, 1.2% to $88.34 a barrel.
Saudi Arabia unexpectedly cut its oil prices for sale to Asia in November to six-year lows while raising them for northwest Europe and the Mediterranean, according to Reuters, which got hold of a pricing document on Monday.
The largest crude exporter in the Middle East set the November Arab Light crude oil official selling price to Asia at $5 a barrel below the average of Oman and Dubai prices, down $3 from the previous month. The discount for November is the widest since June 2020, Reuters data showed.
Speaking to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House, Donald Trump said on Monday that he is “always” open to direct talks with Iran, while tensions between Washington and Tehran remain high.
FTSE 100 firm Informa to buy UK events group Clarion for £2.2bn
Lauren Almeida
Informa, the FTSE 100 events business, has struck a £2.2bn deal to buy the US events organiser Clarion from the private equity firm Blackstone.
The £2bn takeover will add more than 100 events to Informa’s portfolio – from the defence and security exhibit DSEI held at London’s ExCel, to the comic book and pop culture themed AwesomeCon in Washington.
Stephen Carter, Informa’s chief executive, said the company was “accelerating the focus” on its core trade events business, as it also laid out plans to spin off its academic publishing arm, Taylor & Francis.
Informa told investors that in order to fund the Clarion deal, it will raise £940m through a share placing, which will include a £250m offer for armchair investors through the broker RetailBook.
The FTSE 100 group has struggled this year, with its shares slipping by 1%, as it was forced to reschedule several key events in the Middle East due to conflict in the region.
Last year Carter moved his residency from the UK to the UAE. Informa makes more than a third of its revenue in India, the Middle East and Asia. Its joint venture in Saudi Arabia, Tahaluf, makes annual revenue of more than $250m.
German factory orders slump in August
In Germany, manufacturing orders slumped in August, falling more than expected.
Factory orders tumbled 10.6% from the previous month, according to the federal statistics office, but were up 2.7% compared with August last year.
The main reason behind the monthly drop was a sharp decline in the “manufacture of other transport equipment” sector – aircraft, ships, trains, military vehicles, where new orders plummeted 61.5% after more than doubling in July due to an exceptionally high volume of large-scale orders in the manufacture of ships, railway rolling stock and aircraft.
In the three months to August, new orders rose 1.3% compared with the previous three months.
Introduction: Euro dips further as French central bank chief warns the country risks being ‘strangled by interest rates’
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.
The euro remains under pressure amid French debt fears and political uncertainty across Europe, trading near a 17-month low against the dollar, down 0.13% to $1.1206.
The single currency has extended its 1.2% drop last week, and is down more than 4% this year, as investors worry that France’s high debt burden could threaten the stability of the wider eurozone.
The head of the French central bank has warned that the country risks being “strangled by interest rates” if it does not get to grips with its deficit.
Emmanuel Moulin, the governor of the Banque de France, told the Financial Times that the eurozone’s second-largest economy could win back investor confidence despite the “serious and worrying” moves on sovereign debt markets in recent days.
France is not Greece during the eurozone crisis. If it can pass a budget this year to reduce spending and narrow the deficit as the government has proposed, then markets will be reassured by this concrete step of fiscal consolidation.
But, he went on to say:
If we don’t act, there is indeed a risk of being gradually strangled by rising interest rates. We have to remain masters of our own destiny.
The French government is battling to control its stretched public finances in the run-up to next year’s presidential election, with teachers, students nurses and civil servants protesting against budget cuts.
A sell-off in French bonds, sending their yields soaring last week, eased on Monday. The interest rate that France pays to borrow over safer German debt on benchmark 10-year bonds, called the spread, widened, but then tightened again.
Mohit Kumar, chief European economist at Jefferies, said:
French [bond] spreads have tightened in the last two sessions, falling from an intra day high of over 150 basis points to 136bp currently. We don’t think that we are in a sovereign crisis.
Our fear is that as spreads move above 150bp, we could see some contagion risks not just to other French names, but also onto European peripherals. We have highlighted a number of times that deficit concerns should be a greater risk for investors than near term inflation. Market is going after the weakest link in the deficit picture which is France and the UK.
Asian stock markets rose, after a rally in technology stocks lifted the Nasdaq on Wall Street to a record close; supported by weaker-than-expected US jobs growth which dampened expectations of an interest hike from the Federal Reserve this month. Oil prices also retreated. However, US 10-year and 30-year Treasury bond yields hit fresh 24-year highs overnight.
AI heavyweight Nvidia gained 2.1% to a record closing high, lifting its market value to $5.76tn.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares excluding Japan climbed 1.2%. Japan’s Nikkei added 1.1%.
The Agenda
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8.30am BST: Eurozone S&P Global Construction survey for September
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9.30am BST: UK S&P Global Construction PMI for September
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10am BST: Eurozone retail sales for August
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UK chancellor meets with bank bosses
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11am BST: Financial Conduct Authority annual meeting in Edinburgh
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1.15pm BST: US ADP employment change weekly data
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1.30pm BST: US trade for August
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