# Roundup of the week: 27 February 2026

_Weekly market and economic commentary covering the US Supreme Court tariff ruling, US-Iran tensions, tech stock volatility, falling UK gilt yields, and the dramatic collapse of Novo Nordisk._

Neil Woodford · 27 February 2026 · 6 min read

![This week, the US Supreme Court ruled Trump's tariffs unlawful.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/v3acfbvo/production/4feac7835237614909ed30260ed4b03003221299-3448x2300.jpg?w=1600&fit=max&auto=format)

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As I thought last week, calm in geopolitics and financial markets has not lasted long. Last Friday witnessed a significant legal setback for President Trump in the form of the Supreme Court's ruling that his tariffs were unlawful, and this week, tensions have ratcheted up between Iran and the US following the President's State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. The hope is that at today's talks in Geneva, agreement might be reached between the two sides, but the chances of avoiding some form of limited military confrontation appear to be slim. Meanwhile, student protests in Iran are once again on the rise.

Financial markets have had an interesting week. Equity markets, after a generally good start, have had a couple of down days in which tech stocks in particular have been a notable feature. Today, for example, has seen a downbeat reaction to Nvidia's overnight results, which were generally better than expected. Concerns seem once again to be focused on the scale of AI capital spending, how it's being financed, and its sustainability. Nvidia's CEO's comments were pretty positive on all of these issues, but that has not been reflected in the market's reaction to the results. Elsewhere in tech, concerns about how AI will adversely impact the business models of incumbent enterprise software companies have also rumbled on, despite a number of these businesses announcing good results.

Finally, government bond markets have had some interesting moves which have largely gone unnoticed in the media. Across Europe, government bond yields have fallen, and in the UK there has been a notable reduction in the ten-year yield, which is now, remarkably, below 4.3%. As recently as the first week of February, it was approaching 4.6% and was close to 4.8% in September last year, when talk of giant black holes in the government's finances was approaching its peak. As I said at the time, these stories were nonsense and based on a false and misleading narrative that was originally triggered by a paper published in the summer by the NIESR. The fact that this fiction was not even remotely correct has not been followed by any correction or apology from its original author, nor from its advocates, who at the time were falling over themselves with increasingly apocalyptic stories. One, for example, concluded that the UK would be required to seek an IMF bailout loan to remain solvent. Sometimes it's important to remind ourselves how hysterical the media and the establishment can get on the subject of the outlook for the UK economy.

## Politics

The most significant developments this week concern the US Supreme Court's rulings on President Trump's tariffs and increasing concerns about military confrontation, again, between the US and Iran. Interestingly, those concerns have not led to further increases in the oil price, which has actually fallen modestly this week.

As for Trump's tariffs, there remains a lot of confusion about how this issue will ultimately be resolved. As an interim measure, the President, using other powers, has implemented a blanket 15% global tariff, but this measure can only last for 150 days without Congressional approval. Since the announcement, there has been a lot of discussion about refunds, and apparently, more than 900 lawsuits have already been filed challenging the original emergency tariffs, which may force the administration to issue refunds to aggrieved importers.

Interestingly, this political mess hasn't had a significant impact on financial markets, and for a good reason. Despite the US collecting $264bn in tariff revenue in 2025, that's less than 0.5% of US GDP. Ultimately, although this issue has attracted a huge amount of heat and light since last April, it is far from a significant factor for the US economy as a whole.

## Economics

So far this week, there has not been too much to get excited about on the economics front. Of relevance to the UK inflation outlook, the energy price cap for the period from April to the end of June was announced by Ofgem this week. A reduction of £117, or 7%, for a typical household using electricity and gas was a little less than I had hoped but will still have a significant downward impact on April's inflation number. I expect a number close to 2% for that month. The difference, once again, between the £150 the government promised in last November's budget and the £117 delivered was due to the rapidly increasing cost of running the energy network (connecting renewables). The £150 the government came up with in the autumn budget statement was a smart move that won brownie points and will produce a lower inflation number, but the costs have not disappeared and will now come from general taxation rather than be felt directly through household energy prices.

Finally, last Friday's US inflation data was good and showed inflation falling to 2.4% from 2.7% YOY in December. Although broadly in line with expectations, this will encourage those calling for a cut in interest rates at the next Fed meeting.

## Markets

As I said in the introduction to this week's update, equity markets have had an indifferent week in which technology stocks have once again come under pressure. There have been a huge number of results, especially in the US, and in general, even where numbers have beaten expectations, the share price responses -- particularly in the technology sector -- have been far from enthusiastic. In the UK market, standout numbers from HSBC and from Rolls-Royce, on the other hand, were greeted with enthusiasm, helping the UK equity index to further widen its outperformance this year over the S&P 500. Howden Joinery Group, the UK kitchen manufacturer, also announced good numbers, but Diageo, the leading global alcoholic drinks business, again disappointed, and its share price fell 15%.

One other thing that captured my attention was the ongoing travails confronting Novo Nordisk, the leading Danish pharma company. Very recently, Novo was riding high on the back of strong sales of its weight-loss medications Ozempic and Wegovy. A combination of poor results in drug trials of its portfolio of successor drugs, combined with competition from the likes of Eli Lilly and big price cuts, have rapidly changed the prospects for this business, whose share price and market cap peaked in June 2024 at $650bn (when it was considerably larger than the Danish economy). Since then, the share price has fallen 77%, and its market value has shrunk by just over $500bn. This is, by my estimation, the biggest value loss in the history of Europe's stock markets. Not something to be celebrated at all, but notable nonetheless. I suspect that it had also become the largest holding, at its recent peak, in many EU index funds too.

## What to Look Out for Next Week

I will be looking out for some less high-profile UK economic data next week. Nationwide house price data is out on Monday, along with bank lending data; PMI and car sales data are released later in the week. In the US, there are important labour market numbers as usual, and PMI and ISM survey data on Monday and Tuesday.

The busy corporate results season continues with loads of trading statements and full-year results from UK and US companies.

I suspect that we will know more next week about what is likely to happen between Iran and the US. The talks that took place today will have an important bearing on what happens next, but I suspect, given the domestic pressure building on the Iranian regime, that it will be reluctant to back down.