UK Shares Fall as New Prime Minister Steps In
London's FTSE 100 dropped 0.54% on Monday closing, as investors welcomed Prime Minister Andy Burnham at 10 Downing Street, while Iran and the US made another attempt at diplomacy after exchanging attacks over the weekend.Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, told the media that the US reached out through intermediaries to reactivate the diplomatic framework. Diplomatic exchanges follow the launch of US airstrikes over the death of three US service members in Jordan and Iraq and Iranian attacks on critical infrastructure in the Gulf.In corporate news, industrial and data center property company Segro (SGRO.L) rose 0.38% after its board unanimously rejected Prologis' (0KOD.L) further revised takeover proposal worth 13.5 billion pounds sterling. Segro said it met with the US industrial real estate company on Sunday, but the latter did not offer improvements to its third proposal.Mining and metals company South32 (S32.L) gained 4.90% after fiscal 2026 production broadly met expectations. "FY26 production for its seven various commodities was broadly in line while copper (Sierra Gorda) was 2% below consensus. FY26 unit costs are guided to be 10% above guidance at Sierra Gorda (copper), 10% below guidance at Cannington (zinc, silver and lead) and 5-10% above guidance for manganese. All FY27 production guidance remains unchanged except for Australia Manganese which is likely to be revised lower in August with the FY26 results due to elevated water management issues," RBC Capital Markets said, keeping its outperform rating on the stock.During the week, investors will assess the latest labor market numbers on Tuesday, the June inflation report on Wednesday, data from the Confederation of British Industry on Thursday, followed by retail sales and the S&P Global PMI on Friday."We expect wage growth and unemployment to move sideways, and employment dynamics to moderate slightly to 75k. We expect [consumer price index] at 2.7% with core at 2.5% and services at 3.5%, a very contained move lower, only, and we expect retail sales including fuel to decline 0.9% mom, partially compensating for the increase in May," BofA Global Research said.
