UK interest rate cut impact, what’s behind the FTSE 100 rally and Elon Musk’s bid for OpenAI

In this week’s episode, Charlene Young and Danni Hewson look at what’s happened since the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee cut the base rate to 4.5% last Thursday. Expectations for a cut were high so has the reaction from markets and mortgage lenders been unsurprising too? [01:30]  Danni gives the low down on the latest results from McDonald’s and BP. Does activist investor Eliott taking a stake in BP mean there is a reset on the horizon for the struggling energy giant? [11:57]  Elon Musk is back in the news again. Donald Trump’s right-hand man and head of DOGE has led a bid for OpenAI, the company he co-founded with current CEO Sam Altmann before their big fall out over the future of the ‘mission’. [17:46]  Charlene gives us a preview of an exciting new AJ Bell Money & Markets project.  Tom Sieber from Shares Magazine joins us to talk about defensive stocks. He explains what a defensive stock is, examines the traditional defensive sectors and reveals which metrics identify ‘defensiveness’. [23:17]  Dan Coatsworth interviews Guy Gittens, CEO of estate agent Foxtons to get his thoughts on where the property market could go next, the issues facing people who rent, and whether flaws in the Lifetime ISA are causing issues for prospective buyers in London. [28:46]