Taking Stock on Thursday 12th October 2023
Taking Stock: Is a look at today's top business news & investment views plus we cover the winners, losers, the most read company news & the most followed. Today this includes:
TOP BUSINESS STORIES
The UK economy grew in August following a sharper fall in July as the education sector recovered from strike action, according to official figures.
The Office for National Statistics said the economy expanded by 0.2% in August, in line with forecasts.
Updated figures showed that July performed worse than originally thought.
But despite this, the ONS said overall the economy had grown "modestly" over the past three months.
Darren Morgan, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said that over the longer-term the economy had been boosted by car manufacturing and sales as well as construction.
Higher interest rates punish low paid, says Bank's Swati Dhingra
Dr Swati Dhingra is one of the Bank of England's nine-strong Monetary Policy Committee said: "The economy's already flatlined. And we think only about 20% or 25% of the impact of the interest rate hikes have been fed through to the economy.
"So I think that there's also this worry that that might mean that we're going to have to pay a higher cost than we should be paying."
Interest rates take at least a year, typically, to fully affect the economy, as higher debt repayments force households limit spending.
Businesses may also cut jobs, with over 200,000 shed from the UK's labour force in the early summer.
UK housing market challenging but rate pause offers hope -RICS
Britain's housing market is stuck in the doldrums after a long run-up in borrowing costs but the Bank of England's pause in interest rate hikes last month has offered the prospect of some relief, a survey showed on Thursday.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) house price balance, which measures the difference between the percentage of surveyors seeing rises and falls in house prices, edged down to -69 after August's sharp drop to -68.
Expectations for sales volumes in 12 months' time turned positive for the first since May.
By contrast, the property rentals market is running hot with RICS' demand balance standing at +43 while listings were down at -24, reflecting the lack of available properties.