Business news: Investors await policy meets of central banks
By Jenny McCall
11:44, 14 December 2021
Key points
- The Bank of England has offered a glimmer of hope for the UK economy that it is continuing to recover from the pandemic and threats to financial stability are at “pre-Covid levels. Despite risks from global debt, the challenge was no greater than in February 2020, says the central bank.
- The Federal Reserve (FED) will commence its meeting today to discuss monetary policy and all eyes are on whether it will raise interest rates.
- Alongside the Fed, other central banks will meet this week to discuss monetary policy.
- The UK jobs market has rebounded, with the number of employees rising by 0.9% month-on-month in November.
- Billionaire and BT’s biggest shareholder Patrick Drahi announced today that he increased his stake in BT (BT) to 18%, triggering a warning from Britain, which said it would intervene if necessary to protect the telecom group.
Patrick Drahi increases stake in Britain’s BT to 18%, but again says he doesn’t plan to make an offer. https://t.co/fvEr4yN6UD pic.twitter.com/8u1CyY1R5n
— Peter Thal Larsen (@peter_tl) December 14, 2021
Business and economic news
- Poundland strikes gold: Pepco Group (PCO) reported a 46% jump in its 2020-21 core profit when it released its full-year results on Tuesday. The discount retailer, which owns brands in the UK such as Poundland said the growth reflected new store openings amid the easing of lockdown restrictions.
- Travis Perkins saw its stock price rise during early trading today after announcing it was extending its £100m ($132m) share buyback programme by a further £70m.
Markets
Stocks: Britain’s FTSE 100 (FTSE) index opened higher on Tuesday with futures up 0.49%.
Oil: Oil prices dipped towards $74 a barrel today after the International Energy Agency (IEA) said that the new Omicron variant was set to dent the global demand recovery while supplies were set to increase next year.
Gold: Gold eased on Tuesday ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting. Investors wait to see if the Fed will ease its pandemic support.
Forex: The dollar steadied today, ahead of the Fed starting its two-day monetary policy meeting later on today.
Crypto: Ethereum was down 5.27% today in morning trade and Bitcoin also dropped 2.96% today.
Things to watch this week
This week, the central banks in the eurozone, UK, US and Japan – all meet to discuss their updated monetary policies.
Read more: UK unemployment rate falls by 0.9% to 4.2%
Markets in this article
Related topics