Must read: Federal Reserve, Q3 results, GSK

ii’s head of investment rounds up the morning’s big news.

29th October 2025 08:45

by Victoria Scholar from interactive investor

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GLOBAL MARKETS

The FTSE 100 has opened higher with Glencore (LSE:GLEN) leading the charge after a positive Q3 production report. Results from GSK (LSE:GSK) and Next (LSE:NXT) have also propelled both stocks towards the top of the blue-chip index.

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Overall, it is a mostly positive start to trade in Europe, with investors in wait-and-see mode ahead of tonight’s rate decision from the Federal Reserve. A 25 basis point rate cut is priced into markets, with most anticipating another in December and the possibility of a third in January. Investors also await potentially pivotal earnings from Alphabet Inc Class A (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Meta Platforms Inc Class A (NASDAQ:META) and Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) within the Mag 7 later.

The major averages on Wall Street closed higher, with NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) outperforming, up 5% after announcing a series of partnerships including a $1 billion deal with Nokia. S&P and Nasdaq futures are pointing to a higher open at lunchtime.

Overnight, the Nikkei continued to scale fresh highs, pushing beyond 51,000, rallying over 2% after President Trump and Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi signed a new trade framework around rare earths as optimism towards the new Japanese leader continues to its domestic equity market.

GSK

GSK reported third-quarter revenue of £8.5 billion, up 8% and ahead of forecasts for £8.24 billion. Core earnings per share hit 55p, also above expectations for 47.1p. GSK also upgraded its 2025 guidance for sales and earnings growth.

The drugs giant delivered a significant beat on the top and bottom lines, suggesting that CEO Emma Walmsley can go out with her head held high in her final set of results at the helm as she prepares to hand over the reins to Luke Miels who takes up the top job from early next year. He will aim to grow annual sales to £40 billion by 2031.

There has been particular strength in speciality medicines, with strong growth in respiratory inflammation & immunology, oncology and HIV. Vaccines sales also grew by 2% with Shingrix up 13%, although this performance was weak in the United States.

However, there are a number of uncertainties facing the drugmaker including the impact of tariffs and trade policies, the weak macro backdrop and foreign exchange fluctuations.

Investors are responding positively to today’s update, with shares rallying to the top of the FTSE 100, extending gains with shares outperforming the index so far this year. Despite that, the jury is still out from the analyst community with an average hold recommendation on the stock, according to Refinitiv data.

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