UK Retail Sales Expected to drop
UK Retail Sales
Sales on the UK’s high streets continued to slow in October, figures out later are expected to confirm. Sales fell by 0.4% in September, cutting annual growth to 1.8%, from 3.3% a month earlier, Office for National Statistics’ data showed.
Many retailers have opted to hold pre-Christmas sales in a bid to boost spending at what should be their busiest time of year. This means we are starting to see the effects of the worldwide credit crunch, and global recession filter all the way through to the end user - you and I looking at their Christmas shopping!
The news is likely to be bad, as most recent UK economic news has been. It is expected that in an effort to boost retail sales this Christmas, the Bank of England will cut rates again in December, as I touched on in yesterdays post.
Elsewhere in the markets, Stock Markets plunged, specifically European and Asian markets - they have fallen sharply on fears that the world economy will enter a protracted slump. The slide comes after the Dow Jones share index in New York fell to its lowest level in five years.
London’s FTSE 100 index opened down more than 2%, with mining shares hardest hit. French and German markets also lost ground. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei index ended 6.8% lower and Hong Kong’s main index fell more than 4%.
This goes to re-enforce the fact that we are now in a recession, which I think will be longer and deeper than most currenlty expect. It’s likely Sterling will be a big loser once the current situation has run it’s course.
If you have an upcoming requirement over the coming months I would suggest staying in close contact with your account manager here at FCD and possibly think about doing your trade now.
We have had numerous clients who have all locked into forward contracts and are thanking their lucky stars and us that they took decisive action and acted when the rates were at a higher level than where they are now.
Other clients kept sitting on the fence wishing and hoping the markets up and ended up trying to gain an inch but really lost a foot.
Those clients seem to be positioning themselves for the worst but hoping for the best which is not a good mix.
This is a brief summary of todays report. Click here to read the full report on our main website
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