If You Fuck With The Hospitality Sector, You Fuck With GDP!

More importantly, almost all the real GDP growth during Q3 came from hospitality - there is no economic recovery without hospitality and that is why it is so important to ensure industry properly supported not just now but through a longer slower recovery post Omicron https://t.co/3OALcrINR3

— Kate Nicholls (@UKHospKate) December 22, 2021

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Sunak's Hospitality Support Package

The Government support package will be a Billion pound.

🔺Grants up to 6k per business
🔺30 m culture package.
🔺Statutory sick pay

NO mention of Furlough.
Does that suggest that Lockdown off the table?

Also,Hospitality businesses couldn’t afford to pay staff if closed inside

— Adam Brooks (@EssexPR) December 21, 2021

To be announced today at 13:00

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Interest Rates Raised to 0.25%

Bank of England raises interest rates from 0.1% to 0.25%.

The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) of nine members voted eight to one in favour of increasing interest rates to 0.25% from 0.1%.

The central bank said all committee members other than Silvana Tenreyro supported the increase, as inflation continues to soar beyond its target rate.

Meanwhile, the central bank will also keep up its £895 billion quantitative easing programme after a unanimous vote in favour.

In my view this is a mistake, given that the hospitality sector is on its knees and that Omicron has not yet peaked.

The economy could have run hot until May/June next year. 

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'Twas The Hour Before Rate Announcement

Outside the ⁦@bankofengland⁩ ahead of the interest rate announcement. Streets v empty. Feels quite reminiscent of March 2020 pic.twitter.com/TOh36aHYnk

— Ed Conway (@EdConwaySky) December 16, 2021

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Inflation Hits 5.1% - Let It Run Hot

The cost of living surged by 5.1% in the 12 months to November, up from 4.2% the month before, and its highest level since September 2011.

Higher transport and energy costs drove the rise, which was above forecasts of a 4.7% increase, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

I am relaxed about letting it run hot until May or June. Also, given omicron imminent shutdown it is nigh on impossible for the MPC to raise rates. 

I could of course be wrong though, this is economics though not the accurate science of covid models!

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Advice To NatWest

When a client deposits large sums of money in bin bags, that really ought to set the alarm bells ringing!

As per BBC:

NatWest has been fined £265m after admitting it failed to prevent money-laundering of nearly £400m by one firm.

A gold trading business suspected of money-laundering deposited £700,000 in cash into one NatWest branch in black bin bags, a court heard on Monday.

A criminal gang deposited huge sums of cash across about 50 branches, prosecutors for the UK's financial watchdog said.

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Omicron To Delay Rate Rise

BOE's Saunders: Omicron is key consideration for Dec decision #gbp

— Michael Hewson 🇬🇧 (@mhewson_CMC) December 3, 2021

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Slow Hand Clap of Derision for CEO of Moderna - Market Manipulation

Stéphane Bancel, the head of Moderna, has said that Covid-19 jabs were unlikely to be as effective against the variant.

Unsurprisingly the FTSE et al all fell dramatically.

Well done Stéphane!

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Andrew Bailey's Murky Job

 

The Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, has said the difference between providing commentary on the state of the economy and what the central bank is likely to do with interest rates is hard to define.

“The boundary between a commentary and guidance is quite murky, actually, when you think about the words we use,”

The Bank shocked financial markets this month when it kept interest rates on hold at their pandemic lows. Investors had interpreted remarks made by Bailey in October as a signal that rates would rise at the November meeting of the monetary policy committee.

The next decision is due to be announced on December 16.

Answering questions, Bailey said there were three forms of forward guidance and the one that was currently in use was “not so much forward guidance as a reminder of where we are”.

He then went on to blame his predecessor for the confusion.

He said the system put in place by his predecessor, Mark Carney, “is pretty hazardous [and] more hazardous in a more uncertain world”. In 2013, Carney told markets that the Bank would consider raising interest rates when unemployment fell to 7 per cent.

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Bulb Goes Bust

 

Bulb Energy, which has 1.7 million customers, has announced that the firm will be put into administration.

It is the largest UK energy company to face difficulties following a sharp rise in wholesale gas prices this year.

Bulb will become the first energy company to be placed into "special administration", where it is run by the government through the regulator Ofgem.

"Customers of Bulb do not need to worry - Bulb will continue to operate as normal," Ofgem said.

"Customers will see no disruption to their supply and their account and tariff will continue as normal. Bulb staff will still be available to answer calls and queries."

The special administration measure is only used if Ofgem is unable to find another company to take over an energy firm's customers. The regulator said it was planning to apply to a court to appoint an administrator who will run the company.

Bulb said energy supplies were "secure and all credit balances are protected".

Bulb is the UK's seventh biggest energy company and has 1,000 staff. It has been trying to shore up its finances for several weeks.

Ofgem set up the Special Administrator Regime (SAR) for when an energy company goes bust but is too big to have its customers transferred to another firm.

What can I do if my energy supplier goes bust?

The aim of the regime is to stop financial failure spreading across the industry.

Under the SAR scheme, the government can make grants and loans to the company while its future is sorted out.

It could come in the shape of a takeover by another company, selling parts of its business or customers being transferred to another firm.

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Monetary Policy Explained

BoE's Haskel smashing the objective of making monetary policy more transparent accessible for the general public 😂$GBP pic.twitter.com/VtU1Do0Lct

— Viraj Patel (@VPatelFX) November 23, 2021

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Kensington Launches 40 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage

Kensington Mortgages is to launch fixed-rate mortgages of up to 40 years on Tuesday in what will be one of the first products of its kind in the UK market. The lender has partnered with Rothesay, the UK’s largest pensions insurance specialist which has more than £60bn in assets, to finance the longer-dated mortgages. Its “Flexi Fixed for Term” mortgages will allow borrowers to fix the rate paid on their mortgage for the full term of the loan — anywhere between 11 and 40 years.

Mark Arnold, chief executive at Kensington Mortgages, said that while many homeowners had never known anything but ultra-low interest rates, the environment was likely to change. 

“Nothing lasts forever and it looks very likely that we will see a succession of interest rate hikes and we may begin to slowly approach again an historical average,” he added. “A fixed-for-term mortgage — already very popular in some parts of continental Europe — is likely to become increasingly attractive in a rate-rising environment.” 

Rates will depend on the fixed term chosen and amount borrowed. A 95 per cent loan to value mortgage will be available for new purchases and 85 per cent LTV for remortgage. 

 For the longest-dated mortgages of 35 years and 40 years, rates will start at 3.16 per cent and 3.34 per cent respectively, at a 60 per cent LTV. Rates at the shorter end of mortgage terms will be lower — starting at 2.83 per cent for a 15-year product at the same LTV. For 25 and 30-year terms, rates will be available from 2.85 per cent and 2.90 per cent respectively. 

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£96BN Rail Investment Confirmed

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announces integrated rail plan, which he says will provide faster journeys and increased capacity "ten years sooner than previously planned"

HS2 "would not have reached East Midlands and the North until the early 2040s"https://t.co/OlIYXeNnIk pic.twitter.com/6noF7unFRZ

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) November 18, 2021

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RPI Hits 6%

And there we have it:

CPI 4.2%
RPI 6%
RPIx 6.1%

There was no doubt that this was coming.

Industrial natural gas up over 100% from a year ago. Card up over 50%. Electricity c40-50% increases.

Very challenging period ahead for businesses and consumers. https://t.co/SqGZGmUvbY

— Chris Soley (@chrissoley) November 17, 2021

It is mainly due to higher fuel and energy prices but the cost of second-hand cars and eating out also rose, the Office for National Statistics said.

Needless to say the media and others are fulminating at the numbers, and are wondering if Bailey and the MPC will finally follow through on his threats to raise rates (even though he doesn't think they will have any effect).

Given that these costs are related to the reopening of global economic activity, in my view we can allow the economy to run hot for the next few months without the need to raise rates.

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Amazon Calls Visa's Bluff

 

Visa is to raise interchange fees on cross-border transactions between the UK and EU.

The move comes as Visa faces an investigation by the US Justice Department over possible anticompetitive practices in debit card transaction routing. 

Prior to Brexit, UK merchants and card holders benefited from a 0.3% cap on credit card interchange fees imposed by the European Commission.

As from October Visa will increase the fees for online and over-the-phone purchases to 1.5%. The fee for debit card payments is also set to rise from 0.2% to 1.15%.

In response, Amazon has called Visa's bluff and has written to its customers telling them it will no longer accept Visa credit card payments (Visa debit cards will still be allowed) as from 19 January 2022. This gives Visa the opportunity to reflect on its decision.

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Bailey Speaks - The Markets Tremble?

Andrew Bailey, Governor of The Bank of England, speaking about inflation told the Commons Treasury select committee yesterday:

“I’m very uneasy about the inflation situation.

I want to be very clear on that. It is not, of course, where we wanted to be, to have inflation above target. On the decision itself, however, it was a very close call in my view,”

In reality the vote was 7-2!

Given that his last comments about inflation were nonsense, maybe he should just keep his mouth shut in future?

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Germany "Temporarily" Suspends Certification Process of Nord Stream 2

🚨🚨BREAKING 🚨🚨 Germany "temporarily" suspends certification process for Nord Stream 2 pipeline. European natural gas benchmark (Dutch TTF) surges >10% on the news

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) November 16, 2021

Well this will go down like a bag of sick in the Kremlin!

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Shell Moves HQ To The UK

Royal Dutch Shell to move its HQ from the Netherlands to the UK. Under changes proposed to shareholders, its corporate structure would be entirely based in UK, with all meetings of executives, board members here too. Name shortened from Royal Dutch Shell to Shell.

— Andrew Neil (@afneil) November 15, 2021

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Russia To Invade Ukraine?

 

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UK Q3 GDP +1.3% vs +1.5% Expected

A further easing of restrictions saw UK GDP expand by a decent amount (1.3%) in Q3, though less robust demand conditions and self-isolation restrictions in August may have weighed on overall activity during the quarter.

As things stand, UK real GDP is now 2.1% below its pre-pandemic level (Q4 2019).

 

The media have got very excited over the fact that this is less than expected. However, as I have noted many times before, ONS statistics are not that accurate and are invariably revised upwards.

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M&S Shares Surge by 20%

 

Shares in Marks & Spencer have surged by more than 20% after it raised its profit forecasts for the second time in less than three months.

M&S said it expects full-year profit to hit roughly £500m – a jump from its previous estimate of around £350m.

M&S’s improved performance was driven largely by food sales, which jumped 10.4pc in the first half as more people cooked at home during lockdowns. Its clothing line – historically its more troubled division – suffered from store closures, but revenue was down only 1pc.

Shares jumped as much as 21pc, hitting the highest level since 2019, before falling back to gains of 16pc.

However, it warned that it was hard to “unravel” the continued impact of the pandemic on higher sales, adding that supply chain troubles and cost inflation posed a threat.

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Andrew Bailey's Not So Wonderful Life

Away from SW1… unbridled rage in the City at Andrew Bailey for steering the market that a rate rise was coming this week. City source: “They let the market believe that they were going to act imminently on interest rates. There are now questions around Bailey’s credibility” https://t.co/TGhFC0ItlE

— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) November 4, 2021

In the old days it used to be said that the twitch of the Governor's eyebrows was enough to force unruly bankers into line.

Sadly, all good things come to an end; as Andrew Bailey is now discovering.

His crime was to first signal to the markets last month that a rate rise was coming (also implying that he didn't think it would work), only for it to transpire that the MPC voted for the rates to remain on hold yesterday.

As such, Bailey's credibility and eyebrows are shot to pieces!

On the plus side, a large number of speculative traders got burned and didn't trouser as much cash as they were hoping for!

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Bank of England Leaves Rates Unchanged

Last month Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, signalled that interest rates might rise.

Today the MPC has left rates unchanged.

As I noted last month:

"why make such comments in the first place?"

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Global Shipping Costs Start To Fall

Decline in global #shipping costs gathering a bit more pace, though still 252% higher than a year ago...

(h/t @DrewryShipping) pic.twitter.com/QlpG12XeOW

— Julian Jessop FRSA (@julianHjessop) November 4, 2021

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Average House Price Now £250K

The average price of a home has hit £250,000 for the first time as the housing market continues its bull run.

The average price of a home rose 0.7pc in October from the previous month, according to the latest Nationwide house price index. Economists had expected a gain of just 0.3pc.

The increase means the average house price is now more than £30,000 higher than when the pandemic hit in March last year.

Although October was the end of the stamp duty holiday, other factors including a supply shortage and greater demand for bigger homes outside city centres has pushed prices upwards.

This trend is unlikely to continue if interest rates start to rise.

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CEO of Barclays Steps Down Over Epstein Connection

Barclays CEO Jes Staley has quit after a probe into his links with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The City watchdog and Bank of England have been investigating if Mr Staley's relationship to the dead financier was closer than first thought.

Barclays said it had been made aware of the conclusions of the probe and "Mr Staley's intention to contest them".

Regulators began investigating after getting a cache of emails between the men from Mr Staley's former employer.

Barclays was 

"made aware on Friday evening of the preliminary conclusions from the FCA and the PRA of their investigation into Mr Staley's characterisation to Barclays of his relationship with the late Mr Jeffrey Epstein and the subsequent description of that relationship in Barclays' response to the FCA.

In view of those conclusions, and Mr Staley's intention to contest them, the board and Mr Staley have agreed that he will step down.

It should be noted that the investigation makes no findings that Mr Staley saw, or was aware of, any of Epstein's alleged crimes, which was the central question underpinning Barclays' support for Mr Staley following the arrest of Mr Epstein in the summer of 2019."

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The Budget Summarised

 

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Growth Revised Upwards

The OBR is expected to revise up its growth forecasts for this year from 4 percent to 7 percent, according to the Times. 

This will give Rishi Sunak £20-30 billion extra to spend in today's Budget, with another £10 billion a year coming down the track if the OBR cuts its estimate of long-term economic damage caused by COVID from 3 percent of GDP to 2 percent.

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National Minimum Wage To Rise To £9.50

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Putin On The Pressure - Uncle Volodya is Ready To Deal

 

Russia is able to start gas deliveries via the Nord Stream 2 link immediately after it gets regulatory approval, according to Vladimir Putin. 

“The first pipe of Nord Stream 2 is filled with gas. If the German regulator allows supplies tomorrow, deliveries will begin the day after tomorrow,” the Russian president said at the annual Kremlin-backed Valdai Discussion Club meeting in Sochi Thursday. The second of the route’s two lines could be ready in December, he said.

Unfortunately Europe will freeze this winter, as Germany and the EU won't authorise this anytime before January next year at the earliest!

As per Bloomberg:

"German regulators are currently reviewing the application of Nord Stream 2 AG for certification as an independent operator, but have said their initial decision could come only in January, after which the European Commission would also have to give the go-ahead."

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Indices

Technical Summary Widget Powered by Investing.com UK

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House Prices Soared by Over 10%

House prices across the UK soared by 10.6% in the year to August – up from 8.5% in July, according to @ONS 👇

Values in London rose at the fastest rate since 2016 https://t.co/RsZpxhOB6Q pic.twitter.com/mHFQE4dVfj

— Telegraph Property (@TeleProperty) October 20, 2021

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Russia's Full of Hot Air - No Increase in Gas Supplies

🚨No gas for you🚨

No evidence of an increase in Russian gas supplies to Europe next month in today’s keenly awaited pipeline capacity auctions, despite hints from Putin and friends in recent weeks.

European gas prices jump almost 18% https://t.co/loAwChlj8v pic.twitter.com/YcAjHeRSug

— David Sheppard (@OilSheppard) October 18, 2021

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Andrew Bailey - The Reluctant Hawk

 

Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, has signalled that interest rates might rise.

However, his comments indicate he is not keen to raise them and doesn't think that raising them will actually help the situation.

Therefore, I have to ask, why make such comments in the first place?

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City of London Booming

London banks embark on record hiring spree as City tilts toward post-Brexit --> https://t.co/KVJDiwCIH8#Hiring #Recruitment #Jobs #FinancialServices #Banks #FinServ #Finance

— City A.M. (@CityAM) October 13, 2021

Record hiring activity extended into July and August, where 5,300 and 5,700 banking jobs were created respectively.

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China Sticks Two Fingers Up To Climate Change

As COP 26 approaches: China orders coal mines to increase production by tens of millions of tonnes to counter national power crisis. Reducing Beijing’s dependence on fossil fuels shelved, at least temporarily. China gets 13% of electricity from renewables, 60% from coal.

— Andrew Neil (@afneil) October 14, 2021

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Putin The Pressure on The EU - Uncle Volodya To The Rescue!

 

*PUTIN: RUSSIA READY FOR DIALOG WITH EU ON STABILIZING MARKETS

— fiatcurrency (@fiatcurrency) October 13, 2021

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Pensions - Minimum of £10,900 Needed

The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) have stated that a single person will need post-tax annual income of £10,900 for a minimum standard of living in retirement.

That spending budget increases to £16,700 for a couple.

Here is the assessment link.

Nigel Peaple, director of policy and advocacy at the PLSA is quoted by the BBC:

"The pandemic has emphasised the importance of economic security as well as social and cultural participation in retirement.

We hope the updated standards will encourage people to think about whether they are saving enough for the retirement lifestyle they want and, in particular, whether they are making the most of the employer contributions on offer in their workplace pension."

The calculations for retirement living standards are pitched at three different levels - minimum, moderate and comfortable - and are developed and maintained independently by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University.

The assessment is intended as a guide for those planning their retirement savings. Housing costs are not included on the assumption that most pensioners have paid off mortgages, although the PLSA said that decision would be kept under review.

The minimum retirement living standard covers a typical retiree's basic needs plus enough for some social activities, such as a week of holiday in the UK, eating out once a month, but not including running a car.

The estimate of an annual budget for the minimum standard has risen since 2019 by £700 for a single person, and by £1,000 for a couple.

The total requirement would generally be made up of a full state pension of £9,339 per year, as well as some workplace pension savings.

The moderate retirement living standard includes a two-week holiday in Europe and more frequent eating out.

This was assessed to require a budget of £20,800 for a single person, £600 higher than two years ago, and £30,600 for a couple, up £1,500.

The annual budget needed for a comfortable retirement living standard has increased since 2019 by £600 to £33,600 for one person and £2,200 to £49,700 for a couple.

This covered items such as regular beauty treatments, theatre trips, and annual maintenance and servicing of a burglar alarm. 

The figures may seem reasonable. However, they ignore that fact taht as you get older your lifestyle changes. Those in their 80's are less likely to be changing their cars every so often, upgrading their kitchens or going out quite so much. They will, though, be more likely to spend money on care.

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