London close: FTSE falls as a host of stocks hit by AI worries

(Sharecast News) - London stocks ended down on Tuesday despite a recovery in metals prices, as AI worries hit the likes of Relx, LSEG and Pearson, among others.

The FTSE 100 closed down 0.3% at 10,314.59, having hit fresh highs earlier in the day.

At the same time, spot gold was up 6% at $4,944.59 an ounce, while silver was 7.1% firmer at $85.17. Last Friday, US President Donald Trump's nomination of former Fed governor Kevin Warsh as the next chair of the Federal Reserve sparked a rise in the dollar and considerable selloff in the price of both precious metals.

Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, said: "Bargain hunters have been out in force, buying up precious metals after the dramatic fall in prices. Gold and silver are in recovery mode but are still cooler than the hot records reached last week."

Despite the recovery in metals prices, equity markets failed to maintain their earlier gains as Relx, LSEG, Sage Group, Experian, Pearson and Informa tumbled amid concerns about the impact of AI after US firm Anthropic released an AI-powered productivity tool for companies' in-house legal teams.

Anthropic described the tool as an AI-powered productivity plugin for in-house legal teams, primarily designed for its agentic desktop application Cowork, although it also works in Claude Code.

The tool is part of 11 plugins designed to automate specific tasks within a company.

According to the GitHub page, the legal productivity plugin can "review contracts, triage NDAs, navigate compliance, assess risk, prep for meetings, and draft templated responses". All of this is configurable to an organisation's "specific playbook and risk tolerances," it said.

Elsewhere, advertising giant WPP tanked as French peer Publicis cratered after results.

JD Sports was under the cosh after Deutsche Bank cut its price target on the stock to 85p from 95p and kept its 'hold' rating as it said the retailer was "running against the trend". It said that beyond the Nike comeback, there are three fashion trends it is watching that suggest potential for ongoing downside risk to JD's demand outlook.

On the upside, miners gained as metals prices recovered, with Anglo American, Antofagasta, Glencore and Rio Tinto among the top performers.

Glencore was also in focus after saying it had agreed to sell a 40% stake in its Democratic Republic of Congo assets to investment consortium Orion CMC for $9bn.

Precious metals miner Fresnillo and gold miners Endeavour, Hochshchild and Pan African Resources also rallied.

AG Barr surged after it bought soft drinks maker Fentimans and juice producer Frobishers as it looked to cash in on the fall in alcohol consumption by consumers. The Irn-Bru owner bought Fentimans for �38m. No financial details on the Frobishers purchase were disclosed.

Plus500 also shot up after saying it has entered the US retail prediction markets segment through the launch of event-based contracts on its US B2C trading platform.