The Spring Statement has increasingly become an irrelevance: not only are they light on any meaningful new policies, they have increasingly become updates simply filled with partisan rhetoric and jokes at the expense of the party in opposition.
In China this week, we saw the release of retail sales, industrial production and fixed asset investment all come in significantly above economists’ expectations.
Not so long ago, it was hard to see past a time when the Covid-19 pandemic drove headlines, drove markets, and drove our day-to-day interactions.
The situation in Ukraine has continued to be the focus of markets, news headlines and, of course, our thoughts.
The dominating news story this week is the unfolding situation in Ukraine.
The main mover of markets this week has been fears mounting over a Russian attack on Ukraine.
Looking at the intraday performance of the FTSE 100, the index hit a post-pandemic high this week on the news of BP profits hitting an eight-year high after oil and gas prices surged last year.
The most notable data we had to start the week was the Purchasing Managers’ Index, which you will hear referred to as PMI.
US markets were closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr day.
In the US, the New York Federal Reserve released a survey of consumer expectations on Monday, which showed households in the US had a positive outlook on the jobs market
