Schroders: congressional gridlock may prove costly this time City Talk This year’s US midterms look set to produce a divided government in Washington. Investors have historically viewed congressional gridlock as market-friendly, but that assumption may no longer hold, says George Brown Midterm elections are often a painful reckoning for the party in power, with current polling suggesting the Republicans are unlikely to escape that fate. [...]
UK economy to shrink, but avoid recession for now City Talk A combination of a weak March handover and the Queen’s Jubilee in June is set to see the UK economy contract in the second quarter. An easing of coronavirus restrictions resulted in the UK economy growing 0.8% over the first quarter. But this respectable outturn masked a deterioration in the monthly profile. After a 0.7% [...]
Could UK economy be more fragile than BoE believes? City Talk At its May meeting, the Bank of England’s (BoE) Monetary Policy Committee decided to raise interest rates by 25 basis points (bps) to a 13-year high of 1.00%. All nine members considered policy tightening to be appropriate given the strength of the labour market and persistence of domestic inflationary pressures. However, three policymakers went one [...]
