Category: 3. Business

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‘Number one nemesis’

Cornwall Council

Gold, silver, and platinum hit record highs on Friday, as speculative momentum and thinning year-end liquidity powered the precious metals, along with markets pricing in more US rate cuts, and rising geopolitical tension.

Spot gold rose 0.6% to $4,504.79 per ounce, as of 0423 GMT, after touching a record $4,530.60 earlier, while US gold futures for February delivery climbed 0.7% to $4,535.20.

Spot silver jumped 3.6% to $74.56 per ounce, after touching an all-time high of $75.14.

“Momentum-driven and speculative players have been powering the rally in gold and silver since early December, with thin year-end liquidity, expectations of prolonged US rate cuts, a weaker dollar and a flare-up in geopolitical risks combining to push precious metals to fresh record highs,” said Kelvin Wong, senior market analyst at OANDA.

“Looking ahead into the first half of 2026, gold could move towards the $5,000 level, while silver has the potential to reach around $90.”

Gold has staged a strong rally this year, recording its biggest annual gain since 1979, fueled by Federal Reserve policy easing, geopolitical uncertainty, strong central bank demand, rising ETF holdings, and ongoing de-dollarisation. Silver soared 158% year-to-date, outpacing gold’s nearly 72% gain, on structural deficits, its listing as a US critical mineral, and robust industrial demand.

With traders pricing in two US rate cuts next year, non-yielding assets like gold are likely to remain well-supported in a low-interest-rate environment.

On the geopolitical front, the US is focusing on enforcing a “quarantine” of Venezuelan oil for the next two months. On Thursday, it struck Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria over attacks on local Christian communities.

Spot platinum rose 7.8% to $2,393.40 per ounce, after touching an all-time high of $2,429.98 earlier, while palladium climbed 5.2% to $1,771.14, following a three-year high in the previous session. All precious metals are headed for weekly gains.

Platinum and palladium, widely used in automotive catalytic converters, have surged on tight supply, tariff uncertainty, and rotation from gold investment demand, with platinum up roughly 165% and palladium more than 90% year-to-date.

“Platinum prices are being supported by strong industrial demand, and stockists in the US have been covering positions amid sanctions-related concerns, which is helping keep prices elevated,” said Jigar Trivedi, senior research analyst at Reliance Securities based in Mumbai.

The take-up of sustainable aviation fuels is on course to fall short of the UK government’s first annual mandate, official figures suggest.

Production data published by the Department for Transport (DfT) covering most of 2025 shows that sustainable fuels (SAF) only accounted for 1.6% of fuel supplied for UK flights – 20% less fuel in volume than the 2% needed to fulfil the requirement.

The government introduced the mandate in January, which requires suppliers to hit targets for SAF – which the industry has argued is important for cutting its carbon emissions – within the overall UK aviation fuel mix.

Themandatory target rises sharply from 2% in 2025 to 10% in 2030 and then to 22% in 2040, including the use of second-generation fuels that are seen as more sustainable in the long term.

So far, the supply of SAF has been exclusively produced from recycled cooking oil from Asia, predominantly China, the DfT figures showed.

The data shows that a little more than 160m litres (35m gallons) of SAF was used, out of 10bn litres of jet fuel burned in UK flying until early October.

The DfT said the time needed for verification meant that the figures were provisional, and final figures for the year were not expected to be published until November 2026. A spokesperson for the department said: “These figures do not present the full picture. SAF volumes are continuously rising and not all suppliers have reported on the fuel they’ve supplied.”

Planes burning SAF still emit equal amounts of CO₂ in flight, but the net carbon footprint is calculated as far lower because of how SAF is produced, compared with normal jet fuel. Although many scientists and environmental groups remain deeply sceptical that it can be delivered, production and uptake of SAF is seen as the only way for commercial, and particularly long-haul, aviation to reduce its emissions.

While the government has backed aviation as a driver of economic growth and granted permission for airports including Gatwick and Luton to rapidly expand, ministers have promised to consult the Climate Change Committee over plans to build a third runway at Heathrow.

The aviation minister, Keir Mather, told an industry conference in London earlier this month that Heathrow expansion would still have to meet Labour’s four tests, including reducing its climate impact, but that decarbonisation would be “a licence for growth”.

He said that SAF represented the biggest opportunity, and the government’s SAF bill, which is passing through the House of Lords, “will deliver the revenue-certainty mechanism that you called for – a guaranteed price for SAF that reduces risks for investors and raises confidence for producers”.

Heathrow airport has pushed the uptake of SAF with an incentive scheme that cuts landing charges for airlines using cleaner fuel. It expects to meet its own target of 3% SAF use over the course of 2025.

However, airlines have fewer available supplies outside larger hub airports, and have questioned whether future mandates can be met – especially when costlier second-generation and power-to-liquid SAF, yet to be produced at scale, are mandated.

The UK has progressed further than most in global aviation. The international airlines body Iata recently warned that growth in production worldwide was stalling, with SAF supplying only 0.6% of total jet fuel consumption in 2025, and forecast to increase to 0.8% in 2026.

Iata’s director general, Willie Walsh, criticised the mandates, adding: “If the objective is to increase SAF production to further the decarbonisation of aviation, then they need to learn from failure and work with the airline industry to design incentives that will work.”

Duncan McCourt, chief executive of the air industry body Sustainable Aviation, said: “These provisional figures show the UK is using significant quantities of SAF and we remain confident that the mandate will be met and UK aviation will use increasing quantities of SAF in the years to come.”

• Institutions’ substantial holdings in Kingfisher implies that they have significant influence over the company’s share price

• The top 15 shareholders own 50% of the company

• Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

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A look at the shareholders of Kingfisher plc (LON:KGF) can tell us which group is most powerful. We can see that institutions own the lion’s share in the company with 80% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Since institutional have access to huge amounts of capital, their market moves tend to receive a lot of scrutiny by retail or individual investors. Therefore, a good portion of institutional money invested in the company is usually a huge vote of confidence on its future.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Kingfisher.

View our latest analysis for Kingfisher

Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.

We can see that Kingfisher does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company’s stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It’s therefore worth looking at Kingfisher’s earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. We note that hedge funds don’t have a meaningful investment in Kingfisher. Silchester International Investors LLP is currently the company’s largest shareholder with 11% of shares outstanding. With 5.5% and 4.9% of the shares outstanding respectively, The Vanguard Group, Inc. and BlackRock, Inc. are the second and third largest shareholders.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 15 shareholders have a combined ownership of 50% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

Continua a leggere

India’s economic growth will require a substantial expansion of its manufacturing base and infrastructure, with iron and steel playing a central role as an input to key sectors such as infrastructure, automobiles, and housing. While the sector has grown steadily in recent years, per capita steel consumption in India remains well below the global average, indicating significant growth potential. At the same time, the sector is a major source of employment and contributes meaningfully to the economy, particularly outside large urban centers.

India’s commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070 adds urgency to addressing emissions from the iron and steel sector, one of the country’s largest emitters. Demand is expected to rise, yet commercially mature low-carbon technologies remain limited and costly. Against this backdrop, this policy brief assesses the policy levers needed to support low-carbon steel production in India, examining their implications for emissions reduction, employment, and project economics.

Download the policy brief here