British "anti-tech stocks" surged to a historic high amid a chip sell-off
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The British FTSE 100, which tracks the performance of the country’s 100 largest companies, reached an all-time high on July 29, the Financial Times (FT) noted: “The ‘anti-tech’ index surged amid a global collapse in the semiconductor market,” the newspaper notes.
At the start of trading on Wednesday, the FTSE 100 jumped 0.7% to 10,951 points, surpassing its previous record of 10,934 points set in late February. At the time of publication, it had lost some of its gains and was up 0.3% from the previous close.
The British stock index reached a record high amid a significant sell-off of semiconductor stocks worldwide: Investors are divesting from microchip and memory chip manufacturers and diversifying their portfolios by investing in “safe-haven” assets, including stocks in the FTSE 100 index. The index is relatively less dependent on AI-related tech companies—financial and energy firms account for a significant share of the index, notes the FT.
“The FTSE is practically an anti-tech index,” confirmed Emmanuel Kau, head of European equity strategy at Barclays, in an interview with the newspaper. “It’s a pretty good index for weathering this volatility while the market looks for places to take cover from momentum and tech stocks,” he added. “Amid the sell-off in chipmakers’ stocks, the energy and oil sectors are rising,” he also noted—and it is precisely these sectors that play a significant role in the FTSE’s composition.
Over the past month alone, the FTSE 100 rose by more than 4%, while the broad U.S. stock index, the S&P 500, fell by 1.8% over the same period. The semiconductor index—which includes assets that posted the strongest gains in the stock market during the second quarter amid the AI boom—fell by more than 20% in July. Brent crude oil prices exceeded $90 per barrel on Wednesday following another escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, rebounding from a three-day decline.
This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor
