British stock indexes retreated on Wednesday, following a broadly in line inflation report and as investors awaited a highly anticipated yet uncertain Federal Reserve policy decision later in the day.

Stocks surged to open Thursday trading in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s announcement that it was lowering interest rates by half a percentage point.

The decision by the Fed's policy-setting committee to cut interest rates for the first time since March 2020 was prefaced by an unusual amount of market uncertainty as to how much the central bank would lower its benchmark rate from a two-decade high of 5.25% to 5.5%, where it has stood since July 2023.