Britons are expected to buy nearly 8m mini fans this year as they are “surging on to the market” in the hot weather – but almost half of those are expected to be low-quality products that end up in landfill within a year.

Waste managers and recycling campaigners have raised concerns as the number of online searches for electrically powered handheld fans, which sell for as little as £2, has already surpassed that seen in the whole of 2025 in the first six months of this year.

The late June heat surge caused Google searches to more than double on the month before, according to data sourced by the campaign group Material Focus.

Electrical goods retailers have confirmed an increase in demand for cooling technology. The online specialist Joybuy said sales of all electrical fans were up more than 2,500% week on week during last month’s heatwave. The Chinese group, which sells handheld fans for less than £5, has fuelled the trend by giving away 6,000 of them free at transport hubs in London.

John Lewis said sales of its £15 neck fan more than tripled during the heatwave, while the boss of Currys admitted that fans were in short supply after sales rose almost 3,000% over the hottest weekend compared with a week earlier.

European stock markets are sliding, following in Asia’s footsteps. There were modest losses on Wall Street on Tuesday too.

The FTSE 100 index in London has lost 130 points, or 1.2%, to 10,533. The Dax in Frankfurt and the FTSE MiB in Milan both fell 1.1% whiel the CAC in Paris lost 0.9% and the Ibex was down nearly 1%.

Richard Hunter, head of markets at the trading platform interactive investor, said:

The waves of doubt from Asia washed on to US shores, where Samsung Electronics shares had fallen by 7% despite a blockbuster set of numbers. Not only does this bring into question AI valuations alongside an increasingly high bar of expectation, the imminent second quarter earnings season in the US is now primed for the most severe of tests and thus the possibility of widespread disappointment to all but the strongest of profit reports.

The calls are becoming increasingly loud that the levels of capital investment could struggle to produce the productivity gains and profits to justify a decent rate of return, if at all. As such, US markets struggled to make headway as investors sought solace in sectors such as healthcare and financials as the rotation continued, and in the likes of Walmart which announced product price cuts to maintain its domestic dominance.

Sentiment was also negatively affected on what is becoming a ceasefire in the Middle East in name only. Reports of an Iranian attack on a liquefied natural gas tanker in the Strait of Hormuz was followed by retaliatory US strikes in the region, leading to a spike of more than 3% in oil prices. The US also reimposed crude oil sales sanctions on Iran, all of which casts real doubts on the longer-term outlook for peace in the Middle East.

While the Federal Reserve’s minutes later today will not include this latest development, the central bank’s clear focus on inflation will need to be reassessed, putting the possibility of a rate hike this year back on the table.

Vistry Group, one of Britain’s biggest housebuilders, has warned of a loss in the first half, caused by a load of unsold homes forcing it to resort to discounting.

Adam Daniels, the new chief executive, has been in post for three months and has pushed through price cuts to shift homes that won’t sell. Vistry, formerly known as Bovis Homes, had £600m of unsold private homes at the start of the year, but has roughly halved this and is left with under £300m of unsold properties.

It said £190m of the reduction will come through upon completion of the sales during the second half.

The average discount it offered to private buyers was 7.1%, up from 1.4% in the first half of last year.

Vistry expects to make a loss before tax of £30m in the first half of the year, worse than its estimate in May when it forecast a significantly reduced profit compared with last year.

Its chief financial officer, Tim Lawlor, has quit after four years with the company. He will leave in October to take up a CFO role in a large privately-owned business in a different sector.

After a positive start to the year, market conditions deteriorated in the second quarter, reflecting increased uncertainty and lower customer confidence triggered by the Middle East conflict, Vistry said.

Although we would welcome some demand-side stimulus we are not anticipating a significant change in open market conditions in the second half, or in early 2027.

Build cost inflation is stabilising at around 3%-4% after rising in the first half, with costs of building materials pushed higher by the ramifications of the war in the Middle East.

The new boss Daniels is carrying out a review of the business and will announce the outcome in September. The company is seeking to cut £25m of annual costs through voluntary redundancies and more selective hiring.

In recent years, Vistry has shifted towards building social homes in partnership with with housing associations, local authorities and build to rent investors, and is negotiating new framework agreements with 10 of its key partners.

Vistry rebranded from Bovis after taking over the housebuilding division of Galliford Try in a £1.1bn deal in 2020 and acquired the “partnerships” business Countryside for £1.3bn two years later.

The water company Severn Trent has been found to have had “serious failings” in its duties to deal effectively with wastewater and sewage, but escaped a fine.

Britain’s water regulator Ofwat said it decided not to impose a financial penalty because the company took proactive steps to identify failures and invest £98m to address them.

This includes additional capacity at 65 wastewater treatment sites, storm tank improvements, increased storage at storm overflows, and £26m of “nature-based solutions” in the Mansfield area.

This is the eighth case in Ofwat’s sector-wide wastewater investigation which has so far led to enforcement packages and fines of more than £300m.

Ofwat’s investigation found that Severn Trent Water breached its duties, failing to effectually provide drainage and deal with the contents of its sewers. The company was also found to have breached requirements of its licence to have in place adequate processes and systems to meet those duties.

While it now has the right processes in place, the company is required to fix all outstanding issues, the regulator said.

In contrast to the seven other cases, Severn Trent Water proactively identified problems in its own network and began putting them right before Ofwat opened an enforcement case against the company in July 2024.

Two other wastewater cases remain open.

Lynn Parker, senior director for enforcement at Ofwat, said:

Our investigation found serious and unacceptable breaches by Severn Trent Water — that is not in question and the company accepts it. But their response to those failures sets a standard we expect from all companies: identifying the problem, proactively investing to fix it, and cooperating openly with the regulator.

The 41% reduction in spills we are now seeing is what genuine accountability looks like in practice. We will always act where companies fail their customers and the environment. But we will also be clear, publicly, when a company does the right thing.

Virgin Media has been fined £28m by the UK telecoms watchdog for repeatedly preventing customers from cancelling their contracts over a near-three-year period.

Ofcom discovered that Virgin Media “likely mishandled” millions of phone calls between January 2022 and September 2024, with deliberate call-dropping tactics, unnecessary call transfers and putting customers on hold for “no reason”.

The watchdog launched an investigation into the company after it received almost 2,000 complaints from Virgin Media broadband, landline and pay-TV customers who struggled to cancel their contracts.

The £28m fine, which was reduced by 30% as Virgin Media admitted to its failing and agreed to settle the case, is Ofcom’s biggest ever under its consumer protection rules.

The regulator’s investigation found that millions of calls made by customers between January 2022 and September 2024 were likely mishandled by call agents “in order to delay or prevent customers from cancelling and switching to a competitor”. Customers can save hundreds of pounds by switching to a new deal.

It also uncovered evidence of “deliberate mishandling of calls by retention team agents”, with a commission scheme that “effectively encouraged” and financially rewarded agents for “behaving in this way”.

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

Oil prices have risen by more than 3% after fresh strikes from the US and Iran tested a fragile truce.

Brent crude climbed $2.49 to $76.65 a barrel, up 3.4%.

The US military carried out a new wave of strikes against Iran on Tuesday and revoked a licence allowing Tehran to sell oil after three tankers were hit by projectiles in the strait of Hormuz, putting more pressure on the ceasefire agreed weeks ago to negotiate a permanent deal to end the war.

NATO secretary general Mark Rutte said the US strikes were “absolutely necessary,” talking to reporters before a summit of NATO leaders in Ankara.

At least four oil and gas tankers have turned back after trying to transit the strait, a key shipping passage, according to ship-tracking data.

However, at least two crude oil tankers managed to leave the strait, each carrying 2m barrels of oil.

Asian stock markets fell in volatile trading, with Samsung Electronics shares sliding for a second day, despite the company reporting better-than-expected profits. Samsung slumped 6.8%.

The Nikkei in Tokyo fell 1.6% while the Kospi index in Seoul tumbled nearly 5%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng bucked the trend, rising 3%.

Sara Perring, head of APAC cash equity sales at JPMorgan, told Reuters

Short-term profit taking on long-term winners, particularly the AI theme, appears to be a global dynamic… we sh ould expect elevvated volatility and continued foreign sellingin orea equities in the near term.

The Kospi index had rallied 192% over the last 12 months, and has now fallen about 20% from its peak, noted Jefferies analyst Mohit Kumar.

The market action shows the crowded nature of the semiconductor bet but also that the sector would need to keep delivering on solid earnings to maintain the sharp rally of recent months.

The Agenda

• 7pm BST: US Federal Reserve minutes