Britain’s biggest stock index hit a new record this week — what’s actually in there?

The FTSE 100 passed the 9,000-point mark for the first time on Tuesday and so far is outperforming the S&P 500 in 2025.

7/17/25 8:52AM

It’s a strange time for the global stock market. Amid tariffs, mounting geopolitical tensions, and stalling consumer spending, companies the world over have spent much of the year weathering countless ups and downs. While that volatility has left Wall Street banks with much to celebrate, another surprise winner has been UK stocks.

On Tuesday, Britain’s blue-chip stock index, the FTSE 100, broke through the 9,000-point barrier for the first time ever, taking its 2025 gains to more than 10% — thus far beating the S&P 500, at just over 6%. Though the index then fell back below this benchmark, closing nearly 60 points lower by the end of the session, reaching the milestone could signify a shift in investor confidence about UK business.

But why is the FTSE only now hitting new highs — and which companies are actually in it?

The FTSE is made up of the 100 largest stocks on the London Stock Exchange, counting AstraZeneca (worth ~$217 billion), HSBC (~$214 billion), and Shell (~$206 billion) among its biggest constituents.

Dino-soar

Per the Guardian, the FTSE has previously been referred to as a “Jurassic Park” index owing to a lack of fast-growing tech players and reliance on long-standing industries like finance and energy — with the latter making up 9% of the index’s total ~2.3 trillion pounds (~$3 trillion) value between just two companies at the time of writing. Currently, defense stocks are the FTSE’s top performers, with BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce up ~63% and ~70%, respectively, since the start of the year.

These dependable companies have become increasingly appealing to investors during market turmoil. Even though the majority (~75%) of the FTSE’s earnings is still derived from abroad, its reliance on industry stalwarts has become a boon for the index, rather than a bane. (It also doesn’t hurt that uncertainty from the trade war has seen more international investors turn away from the US and the EU.)

Tasha Matsumoto

19h

Stocks eke out a gain as inflation remains mild

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 all posted weekly gains.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - DECEMBER 23: Benny the Bull, the Chicago Bulls mascot, dresses as Santa Claus in the game against the Milwaukee Bucks during the second half at the United Center on December 23, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois

Luke Kawa20h

Microsoft is in talks to shift its custom chip business to Broadcom from Marvell, The Information reports

The Information’s profile of custom chip specialist Broadcom includes this tidbit:

“And now Microsoft is also in talks to design future chips with Broadcom, which would involve Microsoft switching its business from Marvell, another maker of custom chips, according to one person involved in the discussions.”

Shares of Marvell Technology briefly dipped into the red after this report hit the wires, but then pared that drop to trade modestly higher. The company codesigns the Maia line of ASICs for Microsoft that are custom-built for Azure. Microsoft is its second-biggest hyperscaler client, behind Amazon.

Marvell tumbled on a ho-hum earnings report earlier this week before going on to surge after CEO Matt Murphy offered a $10 billion revenue target for its upcoming fiscal year, which was above analysts’ expectations.

Perhaps this is a bit of Information fatigue, given how Microsoft was quick to deny a report from the outlet earlier this week about how the tech giant lowered its sales targets for AI products.

Luke Kawa21h

Memory stocks soar as AI supporting cast repairs damage from steep November declines

There’s not much rhyme or reason to it, but memory stocks are ending the week with a stellar showing.

Shares of high-bandwidth memory specialist Micron, hard disk drive sellers Seagate Technology Holdings and Western Digital, and flash memory company Sandisk are all rising today.

Three of these stocks dropped about 20% in November as credit risk seeping into AI and a downturn in speculative momentum stocks weighed on the theme, with Sandisk faring the worst.

Micron, Western Digital, and Seagate have all since rebounded strongly and are about 5% or less from reclaiming all-time highs, while Sandisk has made up the least ground.

While GPUs (and, more recently, TPUs) get most of the headlines, data centers also need a boatload of memory chips that store information and feed it to those processors.

Nia Warfield12/5/25

Ulta soars as Q3 beat sparks flood of price target hikes

Ulta’s latest makeover is happening on Wall Street. Shares leapt Friday morning as analysts hiked their price targets after the beauty retailer topped Q3 estimates and raised its full-year outlook after the bell Thursday.

Earnings came in at $5.14 per share, handily beating analyst expectations of $4.64. Revenue also topped estimates at $2.86 billion, compared with the $2.72 billion expected. Ulta has benefited from resilient beauty spending, even as consumers pull back elsewhere and hunt more aggressively for discounts.

Ulta now expects full-year net sales of about $12.3 billion, up from a prior forecast of $12.0 billion to $12.1 billion. The retailer also lifted its earnings outlook to $25.20 to $25.50 per share, up from $23.85 to $24.30 previously. This marks Ulta’s second straight quarter of hiking its sales and profit forecast. Analysts are taking note:

Goldman Sachs maintained its “buy” rating and raised its price target to $642 from $584.
DA Davidson maintained its “buy” rating and raised its price target to $650 from $625.
JPMorgan maintained its “outperform” rating and raised its price target to $647 from $606.
Baird maintained its “outperform” rating and hiked its price target to $670 from $600.
Telsey Advisory maintained its “outperform” rating and raised its price target to $640 from $610.
Piper Sandler maintained its “outperform” rating and raised its price target to $615 from $590.
Canaccord Genuity maintained its “neutral” rating and raised its price target to $674 from $654.

Max Knoblauch12/5/25

Southwest cuts its earnings outlook on lost revenue due to government shutdown

Another big four airline has put a price tag on the 43-day government shutdown.

Southwest Airlines on Friday said lower revenue due to a temporary decline in demand during the shutdown, together with higher fuel costs, will ding its annual earnings before interest and taxes by between $100 million and $300 million. The carrier lowered its full-year EBIT outlook to $500 million, down from a prior range of $600 million to $800 million.

According to Southwest’s filing, bookings have returned to previous expectations following the end of the shutdown. Its shares dipped down about 1% in premarket trading.

The carrier joins Delta Air Lines in assigning a cost to the government closure. Earlier this week, Delta said the shutdown would cost it $200 million in the fourth quarter.