FTSE 100 posts 21.5% gain for 2025
Britain’s stock market has recorded its strongest annual gains since 2009, after a strong year for shares on the London stock exchange and beyond.
The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip equities has just closed for the year, down slightly today at 9,931 points, a fall of 9 points or 0.09%.
But for 2025 as a whole, the Footsie has gained 21.5%, its highest annual gain in 16 years.
Mining stocks, defence companies, and banks were the best-performing sectors of the economy this year, as the UK market rose faster than Wall Street.
Key events
Last closing post of the year
Time to wrap up for day, and indeed for the year.
Here’s a quick recap:
Britain’s stock market has increased in value by a fifth over 2025 – its biggest annual gain since 2009 in a strong year for shares around the world.
The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip stocks closed up 21.5% on New Year’s Eve compared with the start of January. The wider all-share market was 19.75% higher.
The precious metal producer Fresnillo was the top performer – its shares have soared by 450% in 2025, boosted by record prices for gold and silver. Its rival, Endeavour Mining, gained 170%. The telecommunications company Airtel Africa was the second-fastest riser, up 210%.
Defence company stocks also surged as Europe boosted its spending on weapons amid the Russia-Ukraine war and pressure from Donald Trump on Nato allies to spend more on defence.
And that’ll until 2026. Have a lovely New Year! GW
Jane Clinton
Although Eurostar’s services have been getting back to normal after yesterday’s power outage, tales of travel woe continue to flood in.
Emma, 45, from Manchester, boarded a train at Calais to travel to Folkestone with her husband and six-year-old daughter, at about 10.20am and was stuck for five hours before they got moving. They were on their way back to Manchester via Folkestone.
“If we had known, we would have got the ferry instead,” she told us yesterday.
“But we were stuck and couldn’t go anywhere. We hadn’t been given any information. The train started moving at 15:45 CET, but we had to cancel our plans for the afternoon and evening as we were due to see family.
“We were in our car on the train, so we didn’t really see anyone very much, but people who walked past seemed calm.“Our daughter was really upset. She was hungry and got quite scared as we were just in the train and couldn’t see daylight, and I couldn’t solve anything (with food or a walk about). She does not cope well with changes to the plan that I’ve set out for the day, so it all got really stressful.
“We really wish we hadn’t been put on the train, as we could have at least got the ferry or stayed somewhere for the night.
“The lack of information was the worst bit. We felt we’d be on the train for the night at one point, and there is no one you can ask when you’re just sitting in your car.
“We’re staying the night in Cambridge with a large gin now to recover.”
Elsewhere on Wall Street, the US president’s Trump Media & Technology Group have today launched five exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
The new Truth Social ETFs are joining the New York Stock Exchange, and will track US publicly listed companies with a “Made in America” focus, covering industries from energy and utilities to defense, technology and real estate.
The ETFs are the Truth Social American Security & Defense ETF (TSSD), the Truth Social American Next Frontiers ETF (TSNF), the Truth Social American Icons ETF (TSIC), the Truth Social American Energy Security ETF (TSES) and the Truth Social American Red State REITs ETF (TSRS).
ETFs are a popular way of getting exposure to a sector, without having to pick individual stocks….
Wall Street has started the final trading day of the year cautiously.
The Dow Jones industrial average is down 71 points, or 0.15%, at 48,295 points, with the broader S&P 500 index down 0.18%.
The year is ending with some encouraging employment data from the US.
Applications for US unemployment benefits fell last week to one of the lowest levels this year.
The number of fresh “initial claims” for joblessness support decreased by 16,000 to 199,000 in the week ending 27 December, according to Labor Department data.
Some positive signs for the labour market at the end of the year, with initial jobless claims falling below 200k and continuing claims also lower than they have been for most of the past six months pic.twitter.com/KJAK6pEarB
— Stephen Brown (@economy_steve) December 31, 2025
Nils Pratley: How the FTSE 100 ‘dinosaur’ roared back to life
Nils Pratley
It was a bumper year for stock markets globally and the surprise, perhaps, is that the FTSE 100 index more than kept up, my colleague Nils Pratley writes.
The London market has sometimes been derided as lacking dynamism – the hedge fund manager Paul Marshall called it the “Jurassic Park” of exchanges a few years ago – but its main index enjoyed its best 12 months since 2009. The Footsie didn’t quite make it to the round number of 10,000 but still improved by 21.5%, slightly outperforming the S&P 500 index in the US.
How did that happen amid weakening UK growth, pre-budget chaos and general gloom? The short answer is that a stock market index reflects only its constituent parts. It is not a symbol of national economic virility. That is especially true of the internationally flavoured Footsie, whose members make about three-quarters of their combined revenues overseas.
The tale of 2025 was one of helpful breezes blowing through many of the most important sectors. Defence stocks enjoyed commitments by Nato’s western European members to spend more heavily on equipment. That assisted companies such as Rolls-Royce, whose remarkable run has taken the shares from sub-100p in 2022 to £11-plus today. Banks have had near-perfect conditions of low defaults and falling interest rates. The bill (for some) from the car finance scandal was brushed off easily….
Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell, said the FTSE 100 “has had precisely the right ingredients desired by investors in a year full of political, trade and market uncertainty”.
He added:
“This year’s success for the blue-chip index is not a flash in the pan.
“The FTSE 100 has delivered positive returns in eight of the past 10 years, averaging 9.1% annually over that period including dividends.
“This kind of performance reinforces the attraction of investing over the long term.
“There may be years when performance disappoints, but history suggests it’s worth pursuing.”
Precious metal producer Fresnillo was the top FTSE 100 performer this year – its shares have soared by 450% during 2025, boosted by record prices for gold and silver.
Rival Endeavour Mining gained 170%, with telecommunications firm Airtel Africa the second-fastest riser, up 210%.
FTSE 250 rises 9% this year
As the FTSE 100 is dominated by multinational companies, it isn’t a great gauge of the health of the UK economy.
The FTSE 250 index, which contains more UK-focused companies, is a better guide to the domestic economy. It has just posted a 9% gain for 2025.
FTSE 100 posts 21.5% gain for 2025
Britain’s stock market has recorded its strongest annual gains since 2009, after a strong year for shares on the London stock exchange and beyond.
The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip equities has just closed for the year, down slightly today at 9,931 points, a fall of 9 points or 0.09%.
But for 2025 as a whole, the Footsie has gained 21.5%, its highest annual gain in 16 years.
Mining stocks, defence companies, and banks were the best-performing sectors of the economy this year, as the UK market rose faster than Wall Street.
2026 could bring new fiscal challenges to Argentina.
According to Bloomberg, with just five trading days left ahead of a crucial 9 January deadline, Argentina’s Treasury only has $1.9bn of the $4.3bn it owes.
They add:
Economy Minister Luis Caputo still has options though as he looks to scrape together the rest. They include a possible repurchase agreement — effectively a loan — with Wall Street banks or potentially tapping Argentina’s $20 billion swap line with the US Treasury Department. For now, Caputo has downplayed the likelihood of selling bonds abroad in January.