🗞️ THE DAILY INDEX - 28th May 2026

Wall Street wrote the script most readers will remember: the Dow Jones Industrial Average — the index of 30 large US companies — closed at a record 50,644 on Tuesday, while a Reuters report had Iran signalling it would restore shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway off Iran's coast that carries roughly a quarter of the world's seaborne oil. Brent and US crude both fell more than 5%. But the DBI ticked up only a tenth of a point, because the rest of the data is still telling a more cautious story — record stock prices in the US sit alongside a sharper contraction in European services, the lowest US consumer sentiment on record, and inflation still running well above central bank targets. The number is moving sideways for a reason.

A note on methodology: from 24th May 2026, the DBI moved to a six-pillar model. We've added a Labour Market pillar (15%), reduced Equity's weight from 40% to 30%, and trimmed SME from 15% to 10%. The change makes the index better at tracking real-world business conditions rather than just market sentiment. Historical scores before today aren't directly comparable.