FTSE 100 Live: London stocks open higher as unemployment hits 5yr high

• FTSE rises 32 points to 10,505

• UK unemployment rises to 5.2%

• Pound falls arsenic investors expect sooner BoE complaint cut

• IHG impresses with last results and shareholder returns

Antofagasta shares are starring the FTSE fallers aft it reported yearly results and copper prices fell.

Revenue of US$8.6 cardinal was successful enactment with forecasts but currency costs were a spot higher than expected, though EBITDA was successful enactment with statement astatine US$5.2 billion.

However, the last dividend of 48 cents was down connected the statement estimates of 56.5 cents, portion determination was nary alteration to guidance for 2026.

Dan Lane, expert astatine Robinhood UK, said the 53% hike successful pre-tax profits and EPS much than doubling "both underscore the affirmative drivers of higher copper prices and disciplined outgo control".

"With beardown currency flow, a bumper dividend and medium-term projects connected track, the communicative present turns squarely to the adjacent signifier successful the copper cycle, which volition apt beryllium written successful Beijing and planetary concern demand."

He sees the structural copper communicative arsenic "intact" but notes that prices "could plaything connected Chinese information and governmental policy. These results reenforce Antofagasta’s operational credibility but copper bugs present request to ticker China’s economical pulse and broader concern activity."

Some much thoughts connected the ONS jobs data, wherever the header complaint roseate to 5.2%, younker unemployment deed a caller precocious of 16.1% and HMRC payrolled employees fell for a 5th consecutive month.

Sanjay Raja, main UK economist astatine Deutsche Bank, says the study contains "worrying signs successful the labour market", arsenic rising worker costs person "spurred a substitution from labour to capital".

He says the information suggests the unemployment complaint could ascent higher, with a "little much country to spell earlier we deed the cyclical peak", with the azygous period jobless complaint already sitting astatine 5.4% and HMRC information suggests much redundancies are ahead.

"Put simply, the jobs marketplace remains stuck. For the Bank of England, today’s information volition lone adhd to marketplace expectations that much complaint cuts are coming," Raja says, but sticking to his base-case of 2 much involvement complaint cuts this year.

George Lagarias, main economist astatine Forvis Mazars, says: "The brushed underbelly of the UK system is emitting a distress signal."

As good arsenic unemployment reaching a five-year high, helium points retired that backstage assemblage wages for the archetypal clip successful 2 and a fractional years are not increasing supra the ostentation rate.