{"id":5680,"date":"2022-04-27T11:35:37","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T10:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/2022\/04\/27\/news-in-review-53\/"},"modified":"2022-07-05T14:24:08","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T13:24:08","slug":"news-in-review-53","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/2022\/04\/27\/news-in-review-53\/","title":{"rendered":"News in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cOnline sales were hit particularly\nhard due to lower levels of discretionary spending\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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As expected, the latest data set from the\nOffice for National Statistics (ONS) highlighted that consumer spending,\nimpacted by rising costs, led to a reduction in UK retail sales throughout <\/strong>March. As people tightened\nup on non-essential spending,<\/strong> retail sales volumes fell by 1.4% in the month following a decline\nof 0.5% in February. This fall significantly lags\nthe 0.3% decline expected by economists<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The biggest contributor to the reduction came from online retail,\nwith sales volumes declining nearly 8% during March, following a fall of almost\n7% in February. The reduction was led by sales\nof food, clothing and footwear.\nFuel sales also dropped as people cut travel amid record petrol and diesel\nprices, with 39% of people cutting back on\nnon-essential journeys in private vehicles. ONS Director of Economic\nStatistics, Darren Morgan commented\non the data, “Online sales were hit particularly hard due to lower\nlevels of discretionary spending. Fuel sales also fell substantially, with\nevidence suggesting some people reduced non-essential journeys, following\nrecord high petrol prices, while food sales continued to fall, dropping for the\nfifth consecutive month.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Consumer confidence fell in April\nfor the fifth straight month to -38, the lowest rating since the height of the\nfinancial crisis 14 years ago. The recent GfK survey highlights people’s weakening confidence\nin the economy and in their personal finances.\nJoe Staton, GfK’s Client Strategy Director commented, “This is dire\nnews for consumer confidence and with little prospect of any economic relief on\nthe horizon we can only forecast further falls in the index for the year\nahead.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Cancel\nthe sub<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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As consumers tighten their belts, research from\nKantar suggests that during Q1, 1.51 million subscription services were cancelled as British households proactively looked for ways to reduce their\noutgoings. With 58% of UK homes having at least one paid streaming service such\nas Amazon Prime, Netflix and Disney+, the research concluded that the\nproportion of consumers planning to cancel subscriptions had risen to its\nhighest ever level at 38%.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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PM trade visit to India<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Boris\nJohnson visited India last week in an effort to deepen trade ties with the\ncountry. Meeting the Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi in Delhi for\nthe first time since last autumn, Mr Johnson vowed to push towards agreeing a post-Brexit trade\ndeal between India and the UK by late October. After the meeting, the Prime\nMinister said that deepening trade relations with India was a priority and that\nthe country was “an incredible rising power in Asia.” <\/em>In a\njoint statement issued after the meeting, entitled \u2018Towards shared security and prosperity through national\nresilience\u2019<\/em> the\nleaders welcomed positive growth in bilateral trade, highlighting the potential\nto double trade by 2030.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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French Election 2022<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Major political news of the week came on Sunday, when\nEmmanuel Macron beat Marine Le Pen to win the French Presidency, becoming the\nfirst French President to be re-elected in 20 years. After a tight race, Macron\nwon by 58.55% to 41.45%, a greater margin than\nexpected, although the voter abstention\nrate was 28%, the highest in over 50 years. During his victory speech, on\nChamps de Mars in central Paris, Mr Macron promised to be the “President\nfor each and every one of you.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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

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The weak UK sales data, fuelling concerns of slowing\neconomic growth, weighed on European markets at the tail end of last week. After\na strong start for London stocks on Tuesday, early gains were lost after a weak\nopening on Wall Street. The FTSE 100 closed up 0.08% at 7,386.19. US stocks\nclosed sharply lower on Tuesday as concerns over inflation, global economic\ngrowth, a fresh surge of COVID-19 cases in China and the war in Ukraine fuelled\nfurther volatility. The Dow Jones ended the session more than 800 points lower\nto close at 33,240.18. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Twitter takeover<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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On Monday, the board of Twitter unanimously agreed to a $44bn\ntakeover offer from Elon Musk, following his bid in mid-April. Musk commented on the takeover, “Twitter has tremendous potential – I look\nforward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock\nit.” <\/em>Subject to various\napprovals (stockholder, regulatory and closing conditions) the transaction is\nexpected to close this year.<\/em><\/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\nplease do not hesitate to get in contact with any questions or concerns you may\nhave.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The\nvalue of investments can go down as well as up and you may not get back the\nfull amount you invested. The past is not a guide to future performance and\npast performance may not necessarily be repeated.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cOnline sales were hit particularly hard due to lower levels of discretionary spending\u201d As expected, the latest data set from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) highlighted that consumer spending, impacted by rising costs, led to a reduction in UK retail sales throughout March. As people tightened up on non-essential spending, retail sales volumes fell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":6721,"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\/5680"}],"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=5680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6694,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5680\/revisions\/6694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5680"},{"taxonomy":"hd_content_source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hd_content_source?post=5680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}