Some fund manager speak: ‘Inflation is moving from acceleration to persistance’. Which means that (more coming) higher rates of inflation are now ‘baked in to market expectations’. In other words, rising prices are not likely to make your investments fall further, they’ve already adjusted to the economic news that’s now arriving. Clutching at a positive straw, the price of diesel at our local garage did fall from 200.4p to 199.6p this week. For what it (my opinion, that is) is worth, I do think fuel prices will fall as we do deals to get the Saudis and others to open the taps a little further; and with China to get more of everything else, most of which they make these days. It’s called ‘RealPolitik’, but will take a while. So although your investments may have done their worst, it’s ‘going to take until 2023 before we see a real deceleration in price growth’. Merry Christmas, everybody.
“UK slips into recession as economy contracts 0.1% in December”
This week’s big economic and bad election news is that we are, or certainly have been, officially in a recession. You may not have thought you were, or you may have thought you have been for some time, as we and its effects are all different.