Please find below, an update on markets, received this morning from Blackfinch – 03/05/2022
Personal insolvencies have reached a three-year high, as the cost-of-living crisis has left more people unable to repay their debts. There were 32,305 individual insolvencies in England and Wales in the first quarter of 2022, according to the Insolvency Service, which was a 17% increase on insolvencies in the previous quarter.
April’s Industrial Trends Survey from the Confederation of British Industry, the first quarterly survey since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, suggested a sharp fall in confidence from UK manufacturers. Business optimism fell to a net balance of -34% in April, from -9% in January.
The US Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of consumer inflation – the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index – hit a 40-year high. It increased 6.6% in the year to March, with energy prices up 33.9% and food up 9.2%.
The US economy shrank unexpectedly for the first time since the initial COVID-19 outbreak. According to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. US gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2022 fell 0.35%, or at an annualised rate of 1.4%.
US consumer sentiment improved in April, according to a University of Michigan survey. Its index of consumer sentiment increased from 59.4 in March to 65 in April, but was still significantly below the 88.3 reported in April 2021. Most of the improvement came from gains of 21.6% in the year-ahead outlook for the US economy and an 18.3% jump in personal financial expectations.
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment support fell last week, according to the US Labor Department. There were 180,000 ‘initial claims’ filed, down from 185,000 the previous week, suggesting the jobs market remains solid.
The Eurozone faces stagflation (slowing economic growth and high inflation) after statistics agency Eurostat reported growth slowed to 0.2% in the first quarter of 2022 while inflation hit a record level of 7.5%.
Natural gas prices jumped as much as 20% as Russia’s energy company Gazprom cut gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, after both countries refused to pay for gas in roubles.
Consumer confidence in Germany has reached an all-time low, according to analytics firm GfK. Its confidence index, based on a poll of 2,000 Germans, fell from -15.7 in April to -26.5 in May, far worse than expected.
Russia’s central bank lowered interest rates from 17% to 14%. Economists had expected a smaller cut to 15%, but borrowing costs are still much higher than before the Ukraine war.
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David Purcell
3rd May 2022