{"id":4766,"date":"2022-02-23T11:13:57","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T11:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/2022\/02\/23\/news-in-review-44\/"},"modified":"2022-07-05T14:09:48","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T13:09:48","slug":"news-in-review-44","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/2022\/02\/23\/news-in-review-44\/","title":{"rendered":"News in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cFalling COVID cases and the slow\nreturn to offices offer further hope for town and city centres\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin\nswept the country over the last week or so, causing major disruption. With\ntrains and flights cancelled, schools and venues closed, people were urged to\navoid travel and to stay at home. The economic impact will no doubt be felt as\npeople hunkered down to stay safe.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Some positive UK retail data\nreleased on Friday from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) detailed a\nsales rebound of 1.9% in January as shoppers returned to the\nHigh Street following the disruption caused by Omicron the previous month, when\nretail sales volumes fell by 4.0%. This\nincrease was the largest monthly rise since shops reopened last spring. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Looking at\nthe data, ONS Director of Economic Statistics Darren Morgan commented from a sector\nperspective, “It was a good month for garden centres, department\nand household goods stores, with particularly strong trading for furniture and\nlighting. Food sales fell below their pre-pandemic level for the first time,\nthough, as more people returned to eating out and there was also anecdotal\nevidence suggesting higher demand for takeaways and meal-subscription\nkits.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The rise in\nHigh Street footfall meant that the proportion of online sales (25.3%) dropped\nto its lowest level since March 2020 (22.7%). Although a continuation of a downward\ntrend, the percentage of retail sales made online was still higher than prior\nto the pandemic (19.8% in February 2020).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Chief Executive of the British\nRetail Consortium, Helen Dickinson, commented on the recent dataset, \u201cDespite falling consumer confidence, retail sales held up well in\nJanuary as retailers went to great lengths to keep up the Christmas momentum\u2026\nFalling COVID cases and the slow return to offices offer further hope for town\nand city centres that were hardest hit by the pandemic. Yet, rising inflation\nmeans households may be preparing for future falls in disposable income,\nincluding from April\u2019s National Insurance and energy price cap rises. Retailers\nface similar challenges, with increases in transport and energy costs, global\ncommodity prices and domestic wages. While retailers are going to great lengths\nto mitigate or absorb these cost increases, it is inevitable that prices will\nrise further in the future.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Over three quarters feeling the pinch<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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As cost of living issues intensify, new rapid response survey data on\neconomic activity and social change from ONS showed that in the ten-day period\nto 13 February, 76% of adults\nreported their cost of living had increased over the last month, up from 69% in\nthe previous period (19 to 30 January 2022). The most frequently reported\nreasons continued to be rising food prices (90%), rising energy bills (77%) and increases to the price of fuel (69%). In addition, rent rises are adding to the burden for\nmillions; average rental costs for UK tenants increased by 2% last year, the\nlargest annual increase since 2017. The East Midlands saw the biggest increase\nin average rental prices, with tenants paying 3.6% more than a year earlier,\nwhile London had the smallest increase, at 0.1%.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Markets <\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The markets were as\nchangeable as the weather last week, European stock markets closed in the\nred on Friday as storm Eunice battered parts of the UK and Europe, driving down\npower prices and lifting wind turbine output to some of the highest levels ever\nseen. As tensions\nmounted over the worsening situation in Ukraine and the threat of military action\nby Russia, gold prices jumped to an eight-month high and oil prices climbed on fears that the crisis will disrupt global\nsupplies. Brent crude oil reached a seven-year high of $99.38 a barrel on\nTuesday, before moderating to end the day at just under $97 a barrel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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All change<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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On Monday night at a Downing Street briefing, Boris Johnson\nannounced his \u2018Living with COVID-19\u2019 <\/em>plan, which stated that all legal\nrestrictions would end later this week and free\ntesting for the general public will stop from 1 April. In Scotland, Nicola\nSturgeon announced on Tuesday that the COVID passport scheme will end on 28\nFebruary, with the legal requirement to wear face masks being lifted on 21\nMarch. <\/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\nwith 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\nas up and you may not get back the full amount you invested. The past is not a\nguide to future performance and past performance may not necessarily be\nrepeated.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFalling COVID cases and the slow return to offices offer further hope for town and city centres\u201d Storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin swept the country over the last week or so, causing major disruption. With trains and flights cancelled, schools and venues closed, people were urged to avoid travel and to stay at home. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4778,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32,112],"tags":[],"hd_content_source":[116],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4766"}],"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=4766"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4779,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4766\/revisions\/4779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4766"},{"taxonomy":"hd_content_source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hd_content_source?post=4766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}