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FTSE 100 Live: Gold surges amid Trump tensions; JLR leads growth rebound

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Welcome back to the FTSE 100 liveblog from City PM

Good morning and welcome back to the City PM liveblog.

Rachel Reeves’ report card for 2025 has received another dim review with fresh figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showing growth came in at a sluggish 0.1 per cent in the three months to November 2025.

This was led by a modest rebound in the services sector – the biggest driver of the UK economy – after Budget turmoil hit October, with it expanding 0.2 per cent.

However, growth faced a major drag with construction shrinking 1.1 per cent and production 0.1 per cent.

Liz McKeown, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said three-month growth was “still affected by the cyber incident that impacted car production earlier in Autumn.”

Though she added figures for November alone showed the impact of the attack on Jaguar Land Rover – the most costly cyberattack in UK history – had “largely recovered”.

In November, figures showed the economy expanded 0.3 per cent.

The figures came amid a jittery month, which countless business surveys pointing to firms putting investments on hold ahead of the Budget.

Businesses were riddled with anxiety ahead of Reeves taking to the despatch box on 26 November as they still struggled to stomatch the historic £40bn tax raid in 2024.

Continuous U-turns and the ‘hokey cokey’ of tax speculation helped amplify fears as each sector feared they would carry the tax burden as Reeves looked to build her fiscal buffer and cover soaring public spending.

The latest figures follow the economy shrinking 0.1 per cent in October, which sparked fears a quarterly contraction could be on the cards.

Weeks later, growth was belatedly downgraded for the second quarter to 0.2 per cent from 0.3 per cent previously.

Even despite the new figures the ONS said the data paints the same picture as the initial estimate – a concerning trend that growth had continued to slow in the third quarter and towards the end of the year.

We’ll be bringing you the top analysis on this and all the wider economic stories of the morning.

In the meantime, here’s a few of our top stories of yesterday: