🔔 Wider market outlook

Author: Anna Bowes
16th October 2014

Making sense of what is happening to the economy can be difficult therefore we try and highlight certain events that take place each week, which might give you more insight.

UK

This week there has been little in the way of meaningful UK data.

• The CPI fell in September, which was as expected.
• Average earnings were expected to have risen by 0.7% in the three months to August, compared to the same period last year.
• Unemployment dropped again in August to 6.1%, which was also expected.

Global

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) earlier last week cut its global growth forecast for 2015 to 3.8% from its forecast in July of 4% although it has to be said that the IMF’s projections tend to be overly optimistic.
• Germany, France, and Italy were all marked down whilst there is pessimism over the growth in Japan, Brazil, and Russia.  There are signs of positive growth in Spain, Canada, Mexico, and the United States but not enough to boost global growth projections. 
• The IMF has promised to pursue bold and ambitious measures to revive growth and reduce debt, which has created fear in the US financial markets.
• Brent Crude Oil prices have dropped below the psychologically important price of $90 a barrel due to waning global demand and increasing supply of crude oil and its alternative, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). OPEC members are having a difficult time agreeing on the right level of production and producers and have begun to enter into price wars, which we have already begun to see from Saudi Arabia and Iran.