{"id":24597,"date":"2024-06-12T11:00:41","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T10:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/2024\/06\/12\/news-in-review-157\/"},"modified":"2024-06-12T12:41:50","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T11:41:50","slug":"news-in-review-157","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/2024\/06\/12\/news-in-review-157\/","title":{"rendered":"News in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cAs consumers gear up to spend more\u2026 there’s a brighter outlook for the coming months\u201d<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Last Tuesday, figures from the latest Barclays Consumer Spend Report revealed that consumer card spending fell to a three-year low in May. As households continue to feel the squeeze, overall spending grew by just 1.0% for the month, its lowest rise since February 2021.<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Analysts lay the blame for lower discretionary purchases not only on cost-of-living concerns but also unseasonable levels of rainfall, which may have kept some shoppers off the high street. Sectors that performed especially poorly include takeaways and fast food, which experienced its first fall in the past four years. Meanwhile, supermarket spending growth also sank to its lowest point in two years. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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On a brighter note, the report revealed that, as consumers feel more optimistic about the latest inflation figures, three in 10 now plan to spend more once the weather improves. Karen Johnson, Head of Retail at Barclays, struck a cheerful tone when commenting on the figures. She said, \u201cAs consumers gear up to spend more with better weather, and with the Euros, Wimbledon, and Taylor Swift\u2019s \u2018Eras Tour\u2019 on the horizon, there\u2019s a brighter outlook for the coming months.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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BCC says there is <\/strong>\u2018life in the UK economy\u2019<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The UK economy is now forecast to grow faster than expected this year and next, according to upgraded figures from the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) released last week. The BCC expects the economy to expand by 0.8% in 2024, above the 0.5% previously forecast. In 2025, the BCC estimates growth of 1.0%, raised from an earlier projection of 0.7%. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Despite the small upwards revisions for 2024 and 2025, longer-term prospects are not much improved, the BCC noted. Indeed, the forecast for 2026 remains unchanged at 1.0%, with the BCC pointing to \u2018global headwinds remaining, interest rates falling slowly and only a gradual expansion in consumer spending\u2019 <\/em>as the main reasons. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Following a turbulent few years, acceleration in growth forecasts \u2013 however minor \u2013 is welcome. The revised figures follow better than expected economic performance at the start of 2024; having briefly fallen into a technical recession at the end of 2023, the UK economy is now on course for a slight recovery, analysts suggest. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Another strong month for UK services sector<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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More positive news came from the S&P Global UK Services PMI, which revealed last Wednesday that the UK services sector continued to perform solidly in May. Although some momentum had faded from the previous month, the index only slipped slightly from April\u2019s 11-month high to settle at 52.9. This also represented the seventh consecutive month above the 50.0 neutral mark.  <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The release revealed service companies feeling \u2018strongly optimistic\u2019<\/em> about the outlook for 2024. Notably, input cost inflation fell to its lowest level since February 2021, prompting some analysts to wonder whether the Bank of England (BoE) might cut interest rates in the near term.  <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Commenting on the figures, Joe Hayes, Principal Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said, \u201cThat’s now three months on the trot that selling price inflation in the services sector has eased. This will be very encouraging to the BoE\u2019s Monetary Policy Committee and suggests the trajectory of services prices is moving in the right direction.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Eurozone rate cut<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Last week the European Central Bank (ECB) cut its main interest rate from 4% to 3.75%, following progress in successfully tackling inflation. Following Canada\u2019s decision to reduce its official lending rate last week, ECB President Christine Lagarde said the inflation outlook had improved \u201cmarkedly<\/em>,\u201d but cautioned inflation was likely to stay around the target level of 2% into 2025. She said, \u201cWe are not pre-committing to a particular rate path\u201d <\/em>but will keep interest rate policy \u201csufficiently restrictive\u201d<\/em> as required to bring inflation down. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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UK election<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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On Friday night, a seven-party leaders\u2019 debate took place, with Leader of the House of Commons, Conservative candidate\u202fPenny Mordaunt and Labour Deputy Leader\u202fAngela Rayner taking part on behalf of the Prime Minister and Sir Keir Starmer, respectively. Key issues debated included defence, immigration and tax. Earlier in the day the Prime Minister apologised for leaving D-Day 80th<\/sup> anniversary events early. The Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have released their manifestos, with Labour\u2019s due on Thursday.  <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Here to help<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Financial advice is key, so please do not hesitate to get in contact with any questions or concerns you may have. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The value of investments can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount you invested. The past is not a guide to future performance and past performance may not necessarily be repeated.<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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All details are correct at time of writing (12 June 2024)<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAs consumers gear up to spend more\u2026 there’s a brighter outlook for the coming months\u201d  Last Tuesday, figures from the latest Barclays Consumer Spend Report revealed that consumer card spending fell to a three-year low in May. As households continue to feel the squeeze, overall spending grew by just 1.0% for the month, its lowest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":24599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32],"tags":[],"hd_content_source":[116],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24600,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597\/revisions\/24600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24597"},{"taxonomy":"hd_content_source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hd_content_source?post=24597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}