🚀 UK gets new Prime Minister

Market Overview
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Year To Date Performances:

1. Former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham was sworn in yesterday as the United Kingdom’s seventh Prime Minister in a decade, taking office following the resignation of Keir Starmer. Burnham’s ascension, achieved after winning a parliamentary by-election in Makerfield and running unopposed for the Labour leadership, comes as U.S. President Donald Trump publicly endorsed his proposal to fast-track oil and gas exploration in existing North Sea fields. While Burnham has signalled plans to unveil a 10-year strategy aimed at easing cost-of-living pressures, overhauling social care, and expanding public ownership, financial markets and economists remain cautious over how his left-leaning agenda and potential tax reforms will impact public borrowing and economic growth.

2. British AI startup CuspAI has secured $450 million USD in a Series B funding round led by Kleiner Perkins and NEA at a valuation of $2.6 billion USD, with significant backing from Jeff Bezos’ investment firm Bezos Expeditions alongside AMD Ventures and Meta’s FAIR team. Founded to accelerate materials science through generative artificial intelligence, CuspAI operates a search engine that simulates and designs novel molecular structures for application across clean energy, carbon capture, and semiconductor manufacturing. Alongside the capital raise, CuspAI launched its AI Materials Foundry initiative, a global collaborative network that unites computing infrastructure from partners like Nvidia with world-class scientific expertise to dramatically compress the time required to discover, test, and manufacture critical next-generation physical materials.

3. Ryanair shares fell nearly 6% after the budget carrier reported a 34% drop in first-quarter profit after tax to $615.3 million USD, driven by a combination of surging unhedged fuel costs and discounted ticket fares. Despite passenger traffic growing 6% to 61.3 million, average ticket prices dropped 6% as ongoing geopolitical conflict in the Middle East led to consumer hesitation and delayed bookings, requiring price cuts to maintain load factors. At the same time, operating costs rose 11% to approximately $4.36 billion USD as the price for the 20% portion of Ryanair's jet fuel that remained unhedged more than doubled over the quarter. CEO Michael O'Leary warned that while Ryanair's conservative 80% fuel hedging strategy provides a competitive cost advantage, persistently high jet fuel prices across Europe could push weaker, unprofitable regional competitors into severe financial distress or failure as the industry enters a difficult winter season.

   Headlines

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   2. NATO has warned Russia against attacking the Baltics as its strikes on Kyiv intensify.