Money News Overview Thursday 28th March: GDP figures confirm UK recession

Investor sentiment remained cautious yesterday. Overall, markets were rather quiet, as markets prepare for today's US labour market report.

Already released this morning, UK GDP shrank by -0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024 and has confirmed that the UK is going to remain in technical recession following two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

This reading is negative for the Bank of England and puts pressure on the policymakers to cut interest rates promptly to encourage consumer spending. Markets are expecting the BoE to cut rates before the ECB and Fed, and this has been reflected in the Pounds performance against the Dollar and Euro over the last month.

In the US, the number of people who have filed for unemployment benefits is forecasted to come in at 212k.

Elsewhere in the States, GDP is set to increase at an annual rate of 3.2 percent. This release supports the US economy and the Fed’s decision to hold interest rates at a 23-year high.

Investors are forecasting the Fed to cut interest rates in June. This has resulted in a stronger Dollar as EURUSD has slipped to its lowest level in March.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

You may use these <abbr title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</abbr> tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

*