Daily Market Update FTSE 100 & S&P

Good morning and welcome to another snowy day! Tuesday 6th Jan 2026

With temperatures falling markets are rising and hitting new records each day!

Ftse 100 up again by another 50 points at 10060!

This followed a 600 point gain last night in the US!

In business news

Drivers over the age of 70 will have to have their vision checked every three years, under plans to reform driving laws in Britain.

The changes are part of the government's new road safety strategy, which will be published on Wednesday.

Other proposed measures include lowering the drink-driving limit in England to match the limit in Scotland, and giving penalty points for not wearing seatbelts.

These measures were first reported in August and are expected to be confirmed in this week's strategy.

Last year, an inquest into the deaths of four people killed by drivers with failing vision saidenforcement of eyesight standards on the roads was "ineffective and unsafe".

HM Senior Coroner for Lancashire Dr James Adeley pointed out that the UK was one of only three countries to rely on self-reporting of visual conditions affecting the ability to drive.

He called the licensing system "the laxest in Europe".

Industry discounts for electric vehicles are "unsustainable", a major motoring group has warned, as the number of new cars registered in the UK exceeded two million last year for the first time since the pandemic.

Nearly 500,000 of the new cars sold were electric, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

SMMT chief executive, Mike Hawes, welcomed what he called a "reasonably solid result amid tough economic and geopolitical headwinds".

But electric car sales were still not increasing fast enough to meet official targets, he said, warning of a growing gap between consumer demand and the government's ambitions.

Discounts worth thousands per vehicle were "unsustainable", he said.

In total, 2,020,373 new cars were registered in 2025, the third successive year of growth and the highest total since the pandemic.

However, it was still well short of the 2.3 million sold in 2019.

Electric cars accounted for 473,340 new registrations last year, giving them a market share of 23.4%.

That was a significant increase on 2024, but still below the government's headline target of 28%, under what is known as the Zero Emission Vehicles Mandate (ZEV Mandate).

The mandate stipulates that carmakers which fail to sell enough electric cars, as a percentage of their overall sales, can face heavy fines.

However, there are concessions built into the rules which can enable them to avoid penalties, for example by reducing emissions from other vehicles in their fleets, or by buying surplus 'emissions credits' from manufacturers which exceed their own targets.

These 'flexibilities' were extended in April, following heavy lobbying by some manufacturers, while the fines for failing to comply were reduced.

The Future???

Hyundai Motor Group says it will roll out human-like robots in its factories from 2028, as major companies race to use the new technology.

The South Korean firm showed off Atlas, a humanoid robot developed by Boston Dynamics, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Monday.

Hyundai says it "plans to integrate Atlas across its global network", including a plant in the US state of Georgia that was involved in a massive immigration raid in 2025.

Other firms that have said they will use humanoid robots in their operations include Amazon, Tesla and Chinese car making giant BYD.

The Atlas robots will gradually take on more tasks, said Hyundai. The firm owns a majority stake in Boston Dynamics, the technology company famous for Spot the robot dog.

Atlas, which is designed for general industrial use, is being developed to work alongside people and autonomously manage machines.

Hyundai said the robots will help ease physical strain on human workers, handle potentially dangerous tasks and pave the way for wider use of the technology.

The firm did not say how many robots it would initially deploy or how much the project will cost.

Have a Super day!

Best Regards

S Dhanda