{"id":7888,"date":"2022-08-31T00:00:17","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T23:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/2022\/08\/31\/news-in-review-70\/"},"modified":"2022-09-02T11:42:05","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T10:42:05","slug":"news-in-review-70","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/2022\/08\/31\/news-in-review-70\/","title":{"rendered":"News in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“With the right support in place and with regulator,\ngovernment, industry and consumers working together, we can find a way through\nthis\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Last Friday, Ofgem, the government regulator for the electricity and\ndownstream natural gas markets in Great Britain, confirmed the energy price\ncap will increase from \u00a31,971 to \u00a33,549 a year from 1 October.<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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An Ofgem press\nrelease justified the highly anticipated move stating, \u2018<\/em>The increase reflects\nthe continued rise in global wholesale gas prices, which began to surge as the\nworld unlocked from the COVID pandemic and have been driven still higher to\nrecord levels by Russia slowly switching off gas supplies to Europe.\u2019<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The rise in the cap of just over 80% will\ncome into effect for around 24 million households in England, Scotland and\nWales on default energytariffs and will remain in place until\n31 December this year. The price cap for Q1 2023\nis due to be announced in November 2022.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Warning of the potential hardship that energy prices will\ninflict this winter and beyond, the energy regulator\u2019s Chief Executive Jonathan\nBrearley expressed, “We know the massive impact this price cap\nincrease will have on households across Britain and the difficult decisions\nconsumers will now have to make.\u201d<\/em> He continued, \u201cIt’s clear the new Prime Minister\nwill need to act further to tackle the impact of the price rises that are\ncoming in October and next year. We are working with ministers, consumer groups\nand industry on a set of options for the incoming Prime Minister that will\nrequire urgent action. The response will need to match the scale of the crisis\nwe have before us. With the right support in place and with regulator, government,\nindustry and consumers working together, we can find a way through this.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The hike in energy bills will\nclearly be an area of priority for the next Prime Minister, who is due to be\nannounced on Monday 5 September.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Positive news for global\ndividends<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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During the second quarter of the\nyear, new data shows that global dividends reached a record high, surpassing\npre-pandemic levels. The latest Janus Henderson Global Dividend Index\nhighlights Q2 dividends reached $544.8bn, an increase of 11.3% from the previous\nquarter. Underlying\ngrowth was stronger (19.1%) once US dollar strength and other factors are\naccounted for. Despite pandemic-inflicted upheaval, dividend recovery has\nstrengthened and now resides just 2.3% below the long-term trend level, bolstered\nby a profitable 2021. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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A prime headline statistic\nreveals that an impressive 94% of companies in the Index increased dividends or\nchose to hold them steady in Q2. Both the UK and Europe were noted as key\nregional drivers of dividend growth over the period, with dividends increasing\nby 29.3% and 28.7% respectively on an underlying basis, particularly supported\nby the financial sector and German car makers. Notably, oils and financials\nwere primary drivers in Q2 global dividend growth, supported by consumer\ndiscretionary sectors. Although US dividend growth lagged the wider world at\n8.3%, the increase still led to a new US dividend record. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The report anticipates that\ntotal dividend payouts this year will reach $1.56trn. Looking ahead to next year,\nslower dividend growth is expected, with the report deducing, \u2018As we move\ninto 2023, there will be no more impetus from post-COVID-19 catch-up payments.\nMoreover, slower global economic growth and the likelihood that mining\ndividends are now close to peaking will add a further headwind, though exchange\nrates are unlikely to act as a significant drag on headline growth given the\ncurrency impact witnessed in recent months. Overall, dividend growth is likely\nto be slower next year given the current economic outlook.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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

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Following Federal Reserve Chairman\nJerome Powell\u2019s speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium on Friday, where\nhe cautioned that the US Fed would act “forcefully”<\/em> to control\ninflation though it would result in “some pain to households and\nbusinesses,\u201d <\/em>markets moved into the red. <\/em>Despite the release of better-than-expected\nUS economic data, stocks remained down early in the week.London stocks also\nunderperformed as traders in London were forced to catch-up with selling on\nglobal markets over the bank holiday. At close on Tuesday, the FTSE 100 was\ndown 0.88% at 7,361.63 and the FTSE 250 closed down 0.10% at 19,149.65.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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

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Financial advice is\nkey, so please do not hesitate to get in contact with any questions or concerns\nyou 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\nback the full amount you invested. The past is not a guide to future performance\nand past performance may not necessarily be repeated.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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All\ndetails are correct at time of writing (31 August 2022)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“With the right support in place and with regulator, government, industry and consumers working together, we can find a way through this\u201d Last Friday, Ofgem, the government regulator for the electricity and downstream natural gas markets in Great Britain, confirmed the energy price cap will increase from \u00a31,971 to \u00a33,549 a year from 1 October. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":7896,"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\/7888"}],"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=7888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7895,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7888\/revisions\/7895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7888"},{"taxonomy":"hd_content_source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hd_content_source?post=7888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}