UK CPI falls close to a two-year low on lower fuel and air travel prices January 16, 2019 The UK's Consumer Price Index was 2.1 per cent in December, falling to a 22-month low driven by falls in petrol prices and a year-on-year drop in air fares. Falling fuel prices contributed a 0.14 percentage points drop in the 12-month rate, as the price of petrol in December last year was the lowest since [...]
US inflation falls for first time since March as petrol prices drop January 11, 2019 Cheaper prices at the pumps pushed down US inflation for the first time in nine months in December. Statistics released today show the country’s consumer price index (CPI) dropped 0.1 percentage points last month to 1.9 per cent, making December’s fall the first since March. However, when stripping out changes to the price of food [...]
Retail round up: What’s happening on the high street? January 11, 2019 Not as bad as it could have been. That’s the general feeling about high street performance over Christmas after major retailers and the supermarkets published their festive figures this week. The British Retail Consortium says that 2018 was the worst Christmas for retails for 10 years but, as ever, the figures show there are winners [...]
Greene King toasts record Christmas trading amid cost-cutting plans January 8, 2019 Pub chain Greene King today recorded strong sales growth over Christmas and the New Year as it cashed in on festive drinking. Greene King said like-for-sale sales over the last two weeks rose 10.9 per cent, while Christmas day sales hit a record £7.7m. The chain, which operates almost 3,000 pubs, restaurants and hotels across [...]
Eurozone inflation falls to its lowest rate in eight months as business output crashes January 4, 2019 A fall in oil prices saw eurozone inflation crash to an eight-month low in December as business activity fell to a four-year low, it emerged today. Inflation for the 19-country area stood at 1.6 per cent in the last month of 2018, down from 1.9 per cent in November and the lowest recorded since April, [...]
Brexit fears see job creation fall to 29-month low January 4, 2019 Brexit uncertainty weighed on the UK’s services sector at the end of 2018 as it marked the close of the year with some of its weakest growth in recent times, while job creation fell to a 29-month low. The services sector posted a 51.2 score for December in the closely-followed IHS Markit/CIPS services purchasing managers’ [...]
Shop price inflation grows in December despite Christmas discounting January 4, 2019 Shop price inflation rose in December as festive discounting failed to keep prices down for stretched consumers. Overall inflation rose to 0.3 per cent last month, up from 0.1 per cent in November and the highest rate of inflation since April 2013. It is only the fourth month of inflation in the last five years, according [...]
Dignity shares slide after regulator proposes funeral competition probe November 29, 2018 Shares in listed-funeral provider Dignity dropped 15 per cent today following an announcement by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) of a potential probe of the sector. The CMA today proposed a “major funerals probe after identifying serious concerns”. Shares in Dignity fell 15 per cent, from 864p to 847p following the news. The CMA [...]
Venezuela is a brutal lesson to the UK’s socialist apologists November 28, 2018 I know it is very hard to believe, but at some point we shall stop talking about Brexit. We shall get back to discussing what we can do to improve our lives and those of others. And we shall look for inspiration from other countries to learn lessons from catastrophic failures or discover truly amazing [...]
UK pub employment on the rise despite spate of closures November 26, 2018 The number of people employed by pubs in the UK has increased over the last decade, despite a shrinking number of watering holes, new figures have revealed. Research by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that while the number of pubs has shrunk from roughly 50,000 in 2008 to 39,000 in 2018, the number of employees [...]