Van Elle Holdings, one of Britain’s largest ground engineering contractors, has warned that full-year trading will fall materially below market expectations.

Shares in Van Elle sank over 14% as the firm blamed continued challenging conditions across its core sectors.

Revenue has failed to increase as anticipated year-to-date, and the company said profitability is now expected to trail both forecasts and prior-year performance. This is not what investors want to hear.

Echoing the sentiments of major housebuilders in their recent releases, Van Elle highlighted slow approvals as a reason for their revised forecasts.

The shortfall stems from ongoing spending constraints and contract delays, particularly those linked to Building Safety Act approvals for high-rise residential projects.

The recovery in their main markets is also yet to materialise, further weighing on revenue.

These difficulties, which plagued the company throughout its previous financial year ending April 2025, are now persisting in the new financial year.

Despite near-term pressures, the group maintains a robust order book of £47.3m as of 31st July 2025, up from £41.5m three months earlier.

The company will provide its next trading update for the six months ending 30th October in early December.

ITM Power has landed a significant capacity reservation deal with European energy powerhouse RWE for 150MW of its NEPTUNE V hydrogen units.

The agreement covers 30 units with call-offs expected by 2027.

“We are proud to expand our collaboration with RWE,” said Dennis Schulz, CEO.

“Building on our strong relationship developed through the joint execution of the GetH2 Nukleus project, this additional 150MW capacity reservation underlines RWE’s confidence in our technology and delivery capability. Repeat business with a global leader in energy is the strongest validation of our strategy, our products, and our people.”

Today’s deal builds on RWE’s successful operation of an ITM Power 4MW pilot plant and delivery of 200MW of electrolysers for the ambitious GetH2 Nukleus project in Lingen, Germany.

The NEPTUNE V represents ITM Power’s latest generation of containerised green hydrogen solutions, enabling rapid deployment and simplified installation. The units can also be interconnected to create larger container-based facilities.

Since its launch last year, the NEPTUNE V platform has achieved impressive commercial momentum and ITM say it is recognised as ‘a benchmark technology for commercial-scale green hydrogen projects’.

Investors will hope the agreement and its delivery can help push ITM back above 100p mark after a prolonged period trading beneath the key psychological level. ITM Power once traded above 600p.

The FTSE 100 held firm on Friday as investors plotted their next move after an action-packed week of monetary policy.

London’s leading index was gently undulating between positive and negative in early trade on Friday.

Investors were also picking through the latest instalment of UK economic data. UK retail sales increased by 0.5% as GfK consumer confidence came in at -19, which was worse than economists’ expectations.

One wonders how dire the UK’s economic data needs to become before the government or central bank takes action to support the economy.

Although UK retail sales showed signs of positivity, consumer confidence took another kicking, largely due to concerns around the upcoming budget.

“UK markets opened a touch higher this morning, but the calm masks a tug-of-war in the data. UK shoppers delivered another surprise in August, with retail sales up 0.5% for the second month running, outpacing forecasts as sunny weather drove demand for clothes and food treats,” said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown.

“But while tills were busy, the mood is anything but buoyant, with consumer confidence slipping to its lowest in three months, as looming tax hikes cast a long shadow. The disconnect is clear, with consumers happy to spend now, perhaps before the Chancellor comes calling in November, but sentiment on the economic outlook remains firmly in the red.”

Soggy economic data weighed on UK investor sentiment on Friday, with many holding off on taking positions despite the US closing at a record high again yesterday.

Having outperformed the S&P 500 during tariff volatility, the FTSE 100 is starting to slip back into its position as an income option as US stocks power to fresh highs.

US tech stocks led gains in the US overnight, with names such as Nvidia, Intel and a raft of quantum stocks powering higher.

The bullish session for US stocks overnight fed into the FTSE 100’s riskier sectors as miners gained on Friday. Antofagasta, Glencore and Anglo were again favoured by investors.

However, their strength was offset by the decline of housebuilders and retailers.

The London Stock Exchange Group was the top faller with losses of 2.8%.

Fresnillo and Endeavour Mining were the FTSE 100’s top risers as investors bought into the precious metals miners, with the gold price holding its own after central bank decisions this week.

IG Group Holdings has struck a deal to acquire Independent Reserve, one of Australia’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, for an initial enterprise value of A$178.0m (£86.8m).

The bolt-on acquisition is part of IG’s crypto expansion strategy across the Asia Pacific region. It also follows IG’s acquisition of Freetrade, as the group grows the number of brands within its stable.

The transaction will see IG initially acquire a 70% stake in Independent Reserve for A$109.6m (£53.4m), excluding the group’s expected share of acquired surplus cash.

A further A$15.0m (£7.3m) payment is contingent on performance targets being met in FY26, potentially taking the total consideration for the majority stake to A$124.6m (£60.8m).

Independent Reserve’s existing leadership team and employees will retain a collective 30% shareholding at completion. IG has secured a call option to purchase this remaining stake, with valuation based on performance metrics in FY27 and FY28.

“This acquisition marks an important step in IG’s crypto strategy in a key region,” Matt Macklin, Managing Director of Asia Pacific & Middle East at IG, explained.

“Independent Reserve is one of Australia’s largest and fastest-growing digital asset exchanges with established regulatory foundations, proven technology and strong leadership. I am delighted that the Independent Reserve team will join IG as they embark on their next phase of growth.”

The Australian exchange’s revenue for the 12 months ending 30 June 2025 hit A$35.3m (£17.7m), representing an 88% increase on the previous fiscal year and a compound annual growth rate of 70% over two years. EBITDA for the same period was A$9.9m (£5.0m).

Independent Reserve serves both retail and institutional customers across 34 digital assets in multiple currencies. The platform averaged around 11,600 monthly active customers in the year to June 2025—a 60% year-on-year increase.

Approximately 76% of revenue was generated in Australia, with Singapore contributing the remaining 24%.

Nvidia has invested $5bn in Intel as part of an AI infrastructure collaboration that aims to ‘accelerate applications and workloads across hyperscale, enterprise and consumer markets’.

Intel shares jumped over 20% on the news.

Nvidia’s investment comes hot on the heels of an $8.9bn US government investment in Intel aimed at boosting domestic semiconductor production.

The Nvidia and Intel deal will see Intel build NVIDIA-custom x86 CPUs for use in data centres and manufacture new x86 RTX SOCs for personal computing.

“AI is powering a new industrial revolution and reinventing every layer of the computing stack — from silicon to systems to software. At the heart of this reinvention is NVIDIA’s CUDA architecture,” said NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang.

“This historic collaboration tightly couples NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing stack with Intel’s CPUs and the vast x86 ecosystem — a fusion of two world-class platforms. Together, we will expand our ecosystems and lay the foundation for the next era of computing.”

Nvidia paid $23.28 per Intel share, meaning they are already around 30% to the good on their investment.

But as analyst Matt Britzman explains, the investment is really a sideshow to the deeper collaboration that should appease the US President, who has made it clear he would like more chipmakers to manufacture their products in the US.

“Nvidia’s $5 billion investment in Intel is less about money and more about influence. The deal deepens cooperation between two US chip giants, with Intel set to use Nvidia’s GPU technology and Nvidia gaining a stronger foothold in domestic chip production,” explained Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown.

“For Intel, this is another welcome boost, both financially and strategically, as it leans on Nvidia to stay competitive. But even with the US government and Nvidia on side, it’s one step short of a home run for the foundry business, which is struggling to attract the major customers it needs to succeed against the might of TSMC.

“For Nvidia, the financial impact is small, but the political upside is big: this move aligns with US policy and could help ease restrictions on selling advanced chips to China. It also signals a shift in industry dynamics, with Arm losing some exclusivity and AMD facing more pressure. In short, this is a strategic alliance with geopolitical undertones, not just a balance-sheet transaction.”