Ftse100 Rises 1.63% as Oil Falls Over 2%
ftse100 ended the trading week 1.63% higher as optimism over a possible US-Iran interim peace agreement pushed oil prices down more than 2% on Friday. For London’s energy heavyweights, that meant BP and Shell moved lower even as the benchmark index finished the week in the green.
BP and Shell Lead Losses
1.98% was BP’s drop at the close, with Shell down 1.69%, making the pair the two biggest losers on the blue-chip index. The move came after reports that Washington and Tehran could sign a deal next week to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in Switzerland, a prospect that hit crude prices and the oil shares tied to them.
1.63% was the FTSE 100’s weekly gain, showing how quickly expectations around Middle East diplomacy can move London equity prices. If the deal talks advance, the immediate pressure stays on energy names rather than the broader index, because the stock market’s biggest drag on Friday came from the oil price reaction itself.
Iran Talks and the Strait
Next week’s possible memorandum of understanding still depends on approval by Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. That detail leaves the market response tied to one narrow political decision, and it explains why Friday’s move remained a reaction to expectations rather than a signed agreement.
3.33% was Flutter Entertainment’s decline in London at the close after the company said it plans to delist its ordinary shares from the London bourse on Aug. 3. It will continue to list in New York, so the stock’s weaker London print sits beside a separate corporate move rather than the oil-driven trade that pulled at the index and energy names.
UK GDP Slips 0.1%
0.1% was the fall in Britain’s monthly gross domestic product in April 2026, in line with expectations and the first economic contraction since August 2025. The decline followed a 0.3% rise a month earlier, with services falling, construction growing, and production stagnating during the month.
0.7% was GDP growth in the three months to April, which makes the monthly drop look less like a collapse than a warning that momentum is cooling. Yael Selfin, vice chair and chief economist at KPMG in the UK, said: “While UK GDP grew by 0.7% in the three months to April, the contraction in April is more indicative of growth prospects for the economy going forward. We expect UK GDP growth to slow in the second quarter,”
2% oil-price weakness, a 1.63% weekly index gain, and a 0.1% GDP contraction leave investors with two near-term signals to watch: whether the Middle East talks keep weighing on energy shares and whether the UK data run next week shifts the growth picture again. Inflation data, labor market figures, the Bank of England’s interest rate decision, retail sales, and public sector net borrowing all land in the same stretch.
