UK PMI: Manufacturing grows at fastest rate in 10 months despite coronavirus February 21, 2020 UK manufacturing grew at its fastest rate in 10 months in February, according to a flash Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) reading, but services fell to a two-month low. According to IHS Markit / CIPS data, manufacturing hit 52.8, up from January’s final rate of 50.1, whilst services fell to 53.3, down from 53.9 last month. [...]
PPI, profit drop, and a mixed 2020: Five takeaways from Lloyds’ results February 20, 2020 Lloyds reported a 26 per cent drop in annual profit on Thursday, with Britain’s largest domestic lender hit by a rise in bad debts and billions of pounds of customer compensation payout. Chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio said the results demonstrated a “solid financial performance in a challenging external market”, but analysts have described them as [...]
New £20 note enters circulation: Everything you need to know February 20, 2020 The Bank of England’s new polymer £20 note enters circulation for the first time today. The note, which was first unveiled in October, features British painter JMW Turner, will start appearing at ATMs and tills throughout the country today. The BoE said it expects half of ATMS across Britain to be dispensing polymer £20 notes [...]
Housebuilders boosted by HSBC stock upgrade February 19, 2020 Shares in housebuilding firms jumped today after HSBC upgraded its view on the stocks, saying the decisive general election result “unleashed pent-up demand” in activity. Berkeley’s share price rose 3.2 per cent to an all-time high this morning after HSBC upgraded the stock from “hold” to “buy”. The bank now has “buy” ratings on all [...]
UK inflation rate jumps to 1.8 per cent in January February 19, 2020 UK inflation rose to a six-month high of 1.8 per cent in January, a significant increase from December’s rate of 1.3 per cent, according to official data released today. The rate remains below the Bank of England’s (BoE) target of two per cent. The bump comes as a surprise to analysts, who had forecast the [...]
How will the pound perform in 2020? February 19, 2020 Brexit cast a long shadow over the pound in 2019, but what will 2020 have in store for sterling? Caution from the Bank of England and faltering economic results were all seen through the lens of Brexit. Now while the focus may move slightly from the challenges of uncertainty due to a political impasse, the [...]
Time for the Treasury to get with the programme — Britain can afford to spend February 19, 2020 In the days of the old Soviet Union, so-called Kremlinologists would pore over every utterance of the Politburo, every sentence in Pravda, to try to work out what was really going on. Sajid Javid’s defenestration from the Treasury has led to an upsurge in similar types of intellectual effort here. What was it really all [...]
Knowledge of financial markets desirable but not essential for new FCA boss February 18, 2020 The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) today published an advert for its top job where it listed familiarity with the workings of financial services and markets as “desirable” but not essential. Outgoing FCA chief executive Andrew Bailey is joining the Bank of England next month to replace Mark Carney as governor. Bailey’s tenure at the FCA [...]
Retail investors exposed to too much risk, says City watchdog February 18, 2020 Retail investors are being pushed into purchasing higher risk products that expose them to more risk than they can afford, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has warned. In its annual report on the areas that could harm consumers, the City watchdog said that the sale of “unsuitable or fraudulent products” represents the most significant harm [...]
Pound rallies as UK employment hits record high and wages beat 2008 peak February 18, 2020 Wages beat their pre-financial crisis peak for the first time at the end of 2019, as the level of UK employment rose to a record high of 32.9m people. A total of 180,000 people entered the workforce between October and December 2019, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said today. That took the number of [...]