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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Graeme Wearden

Final UK interest rate rise expected in May; profits driving up inflation, warns ECB; US jobless claims rise – as it happened

Inflation United Nations United States Michael Saunders Minette Batters Pepco United Kingdom Larry Elliott Unilever
A supermarket in Manchester, Britain.
A supermarket in Manchester, Britain. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock

Yellen to call for ‘constructive and fair’ economic relationship with China

US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen is expected to call for a “constructive and fair” economic relationship between China and the US.

In a sign that Washington wants to strengthen ties with Beijing, Yellen is expected to say later today that the US wants to cooperate with China on global issues such as climate change, debt relief and macroeconomic stability.

But Yellen will also warn that US will keep resisting “unfair” economic policies, amid ongoing tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

She is expected to tell Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies that:

“More than resources or geography, our country’s success can be attributed to our people, values and institutions. American democracy, while not perfect, protects the free exchange of ideas and rule of law that is at the bedrock of sustainable growth.”

Afternoon summary

Time for a recap – here are today’s main stories so far:

U.S. existing home sales fell by 2.4% in March, new figures show.

Existing home sales dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.44 million units last month, the National Association of Realtors reports, as rising mortgage rates deterred potential buyers.

Seagate hit with $300m penalty for continuing relationship with Huawei

Hard drive maker Seagate has been hit with a $300m penalty for maintaining a business relationship with Chinese technology firm Huawei after the company was added to a U.S. trade blacklist.

Seagate reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce to resolve allegations that Seagate breached rules by selling millions of hard disk drives to Huawei between August 17, 2020 and September 29, 2021.

It’s the largest standalone penalty in the history of the Commerce Department’s export control bureau, according to CNBC.

Seagate says it settled after considering the risks and cost of protracted litigation involving the US government, as well as the size of the potential penalty.

Back in 2019, Donald Trump’s administration banned Huawei from buying US components without official approval. The export control rules were later amended to block all unlicensed shipments of chips and components to the company, even from non-US suppliers, if they included any American machinery or technology.

Dave Mosley, Seagate’s chief executive officer, says:

“Integrity is one of our core values, and we have a strong commitment to compliance as evidenced by our global team of international trade compliance and legal professionals – complemented by external experts and outside counsel.

While we believed we complied with all relevant export control laws at the time we made the hard disk drive sales at issue, we determined that engaging with BIS and settling this matter was the best course of action. We are now moving forward fully focused on executing our strong technology roadmap to support the growing demand for mass data storage solutions.”

Updated

Wall Street has opened in the red, as shares are pulled down by economic worries, and jitters about the US debt ceiling.

The Dow Jones industrial average has dipped by 153 points, or 0.45%, to 33,743 points, while the broader S&P 500 index has lost 0.55%.

The increase in US jobless claims last week will be adding to concerns that the US could drop into recession.

Tesla’s shares have fallen 7% after missing Wall Street forecasts last night, as price cuts ate into its profit margins.

Updated

Investment bank Jefferies also believes the Bank of England is near to the end of its rate hiking cycle.

They expect the last hike to be in May, with rates peaking at 4.5% (up from 4.25% at present).

Jefferies say:

Market is currently pricing a peak just under 5%.

Recent inflation prints confirm our negative bias for inflation in the UK - it is likely to stay higher for longer than other economies. However, a slowing growth picture and the fact that mortgages are tied to the front end of the curve would constrain the BoE.

The US dollar has dipped on the foreign exchange markets.

The rise in jobless claims, and slowdown in Philadelphia manufacturing, may nudge the Federal Reserve towards ending its interest rate increases soon….

Manufacturing activity in and around Philadelphia continued to decline overall in April, at the fastest pace since early in the pandemic.

The latest Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey, compiled by the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, found that the prices charged, and paid, by factories in the district deglined again.

Firms’ expectations for growth over the next six months remain subdued, even though indexes for new orders and shipments rose.

This pulled the index for current general activity down by 8 points to -31.3 in April. That’s the eighth consecutive negative reading, and the lowest reading since May 2020

US jobless claims rise

The number of Americans filng new claims for unemployment support has risen again, to the highest in three weeks.

Last week, 245,000 initial claims for jobless support were filed across the US, an increase of 5,000 on the previous week.

Initial claims are a proxy for job losses, and this may suggest that US companies laid off more staff as rising interest rates – and last month’s banking crisis – cooled the economy,

Nokia, the wireless and fixed-network equipment maker, has warned that spending by operators and other customers has weakened due to the economic situation.

Nokia made the warning after reporting lower than expected profits this morning.

Associated Press has more details:

The Espoo, Finland-based company reported net profit of €342m for the January-March period, down 18% from €416m a year earlier. Net income attributable to shareholders was €332m, down from €409m the previous year.

Nokia’s sales were up 10% at €5.9bn.

Nokia is one of the world’s main suppliers of 5G, the latest generation of broadband technology, along with Sweden’s Ericsson, China’s Huawei and South Korea’s Samsung.

CEO Pekka Lundmark said that the first quarter had given Nokia “a solid start” to 2023, but cautioned that…

…looking forward, we are starting to see some signs of the economic environment impacting customer spending.”

“Given the ongoing need to invest in 5G and fiber, we see this primarily as a question of timing.

“Nevertheless we will maintain our cost discipline to ensure we can successfully navigate this uncertainty.”

ECB: Profits, not wages, have been driving inflation

The European Central Bank is concerned that rising profits, not higher wages, is driving inflation in the eurozone.

The minutes of the ECB’s last monetary policy meeting, held in March, showed that its governing council believes there are ‘substantial’ inflationary pipeline pressures.

The minutes say that wage rises have only had a ‘limited influence’ on inflation since 2021, and pointed to corporate profit rises as a more important factor:

Wage pressures had strengthened, supported by robust labour markets and employees aiming to recoup some of the purchasing power lost owing to high inflation.

Moreover, many firms had been able to raise their profit margins in sectors faced with constrained supply and resurgent demand.

The evolution of profits compared with that of wages suggested that wages had had only a limited influence on inflation over the past two years and that the increase in profits had been significantly more dynamic than that in wages. An important question for the forecasting of inflation was whether firms would continue with the same pricing strategy or would accept lower profit margins in the period ahead.

Significant comments, given concerns around greedflation and the ability of corporations to hike their profits of late.

Inflation across the eurozone fell to 6.9 % in March 2023, down from 8.5 % in February 2023.

Yesterday Isabel Schnabel, a member of the ECB’s executive board, showed in a speech how rising profits had lifted inflation.

Updated

Back in the UK, EY is under investigation by the UK accounting watchdog over how it evaluated the finances of collapsed furniture retailer Made.com.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said it has launched a probe into EY – in relation to the auditing of financial statements of Made.com during 2021.

Made.com fell into administration last November, leading to 320 redundancies and costing customers millions of pounds in lost deposits.

The collapse came under 18 months after it launched on the London Stock Exchange, in June 2021, valued at around £775m.

EY said it had been notified of the probe, and a spokesperson said:

“We will be fully cooperating with the FRC during their inquiries. It would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”

US credit default swaps highest since 2011

The cost of insuring United States sovereign debt against default has risen to the highest level since 2011 today.

The move comes amid those market jitters that the government could hit its debt ceiling sooner than expected.

Spreads on U.S. five-year credit default swaps widened to 49 basis points, data from S&P Global Market Intelligence showed. This is more than double the level they stood at in January this year.

Updated

Anxiety that higher interest rates could hit economic growth are pushing the oil price down today.

Brent crude has lost 1.3% to below $82 per barrel, the lowest since Opec surprisingly cut production at the start of this month.

The prospect of further interest rate increases in the US, even through CPI inflation has dropped to 5%, is hitting the energy market.

Economic and interest rate uncertainty is weighing on markets, says Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA:

Central banks, the Fed in particular, are now at even greater risk of overtightening just as the data may show price pressures easing considerably.

The fear of that not materializing will probably drive another round of rate hikes next month, after which discussions will likely be far more balanced.

The yield, or interest rate, on short-term US government debt is rising this morning.

The yield on three-month Treasury bills has risen over 5.3%, hitting the highest in two decades, indicating that the concerns over the US debt ceiling (see earlier post) are hitting demand for US debt.

Bond yields rise when prices falls.

Updated

HSBC: We showed bravery in buying SVB UK after five hours diligence

The boss of HSBC UK said the bank “definitely helped” UK taxpayers through its “bravery” in deciding to save Silicon Valley Bank’s local subsidiary after just five hours of due diligence during last month’s banking crisis.

Speaking at TheCityUK conference in London this morning, HSBC UK CEO Ian Stuart used the end of his speech to comment on the government-orchestrated deal that not only saved thousands of British tech startups and investors from big losses, but also allowed HSBC to buy up the crisis-hit bank and its 4,000 customers for just £1.

Stuart said:

“Let me go back to that weekend in March when an opportunity came across our desk at HSBC. I’m really grateful to the close partnership we had with authorities in the UK and the US, the tireless efforts of our people.

And I know we’ve had some criticism on [doing just] five hours of due diligence, but sometimes you just have to be brave. Nobody has asked me about the quality of the due diligence we did, which was exceptional, but at some point the papers came on my desk and it said is it ‘go’? Or is it ‘no go’? And I thought it was a ‘go’.

And I hope that little bit of bravery serves us very, very well. And I hope it serves the 4,000 customers that we brought in, very well. The one person that [was] definitely helped was the UK taxpayer…. I hope that bravery pays off.”

JP Morgan: Non-trivial risk of US default from debt ceiling issue

Jitters are rising in the markets about the looming crisis over the US debt ceiling.

JP Morgan expects the US debt ceiling to become an issue as early as next month with the Wall Street bank ascribing a “non-trivial risk” of a technical default on U.S. Treasuries, Reuters reports.

In a note published to clients late on Wednesday, JPMorgan said it expected both the debate over the debt ceiling as well as the one on the federal funding bill to run “dangerously close” to their final deadlines.

The bank said its U.S. rates strategy team expects the Treasury could run out of available resources by the middle of August.

The debt ceiling is the maximum amount the U.S. government can borrow to meet its financial obligations. When the ceiling is reached, the Treasury cannot issue any more bills, bonds or notes, and must rely on tax revenues to fund spending and repay maturing debt.

The X-date - or the date by which the federal government can no longer meet all its obligations in full and on time absent actions by Congress - is currently early June, but could be revised in the next few days.

Congress is (predictably) split on the issue, with Republicans seeking to tie raising the debt ceiling to steep budget cuts, while Democrats are pushing for a higher federal borrowing limit without conditions.

Yesterday Kevin McCarthy, the Republican speaker of the House, outlined a proposal to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5tn, but included measures which Democrats are likely to resist including capping government spending at fiscal year 2022 levels.

Jim Reid of Deutsche Bank told clients:

Also on the debt ceiling, House Speaker McCarthy released a plan yesterday to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5tr, which would push the “x-date” out into March 2024.

The GOP hope to vote on the bill in the coming days as an opening salvo in talks with the White House.

Moderate members of both parties also pushed forward an idea that would suspend the debt ceiling until December 31 and then possibly February 2025 if certain conditions were met. The plan is likely dead-on-arrival given the slim GOP majority and the weakened position of Speaker McCarthy, who would have to put the bill up to a vote.

Updated

The Office for National Statistics also reports some "small signs of positive improvement” in UK business conditions.

Fewer businesses are reporting higher costs for goods or services bought, and half are planning to leave their own prices on hold in May.

The ONS says:

  • The proportion of businesses reporting that their turnover had increased compared with the previous calendar month continued to climb in March 2023, with nearly one in five (19%) trading businesses reporting this compared with 16% in February 2023.

  • Almost two in five (38%) trading businesses reported an increase in the prices of goods or services bought in March 2023 compared with February 2023; however, the proportion of businesses reporting higher prices compared with the previous month has steadily fallen from a peak of 48% in September 2022.

  • Approximately one in six (16%) trading businesses reported an increase in the prices of goods or services sold in March 2023 compared with February 2023; in comparison, 62% of businesses reported prices stayed the same.

  • When asked in early April 2023, nearly a quarter (23%) of trading businesses reported they expect to raise their prices in May 2023, while more than half (53%) expect the prices of goods or services they sell to stay the same.

UK rental housing less affordable

UK tenants have been squeezed by higher rental costs over recent years, new data today shows.

The Office for National Statistics reports that in March, the average proportion of gross income spent on rent in the UK was 26.8%.

This is slightly higher than in March 2022, when it was 26.6%. Four years ago, rent took less than 25% of gross income.

The ONS says:

The data indicate that rent is now less affordable than it was in 2019 though it has been broadly stable for the last two years.

A graph showing the proportion of income spent on rent
A graph showing the proportion of income spent on rent Photograph: ONS

(The calculation excludes renters with annual incomes below £10,000 and over £500,000.)

Updated

FCA: loyal savers miss out from higher rates

Loyal savers are losing out as banks fail to pass on interest rate increases to their existing customers, the head of the UK’s financial watchdog has told MPs.

Nikhil Rathi, chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, told the Treasury Committee that banks typically offer less attractive savings rates to existing customers.

That means they have missed out on the benefits of the last 11 increases in UK interest rates.

Answering questions from MPs, Rathi says:

It is, and has been, standard practice for firms to offer more attractive rates to new savers, while leaving existing savers earning less competitive rates.

We expect that the harm from this practice (and the loyalty penalty faced by longstanding customers) will have increased as the base rate has risen.

Rathi also explains that the new UK Consumer Duty, which comes into force on 31 July, will challenges firms to tackle practices which make switching provider unnecessarily burdensome.

He adds:

We would encourage consumers to actively consider switching should they be dissatisfied with the value they are getting from their current provider.

Higher interest rates tend to boost bank profits, as it raises their net interest margins [the gap between low savings rates and the high interest charged to mortgage and loan borrowers].

Harriett Baldwin MP, chair of the Treasury Committee, says parliament has its eye on the banking sector:

“The regulator has now given us official confirmation that the UK’s biggest banks are profiting from interest rate rises and that loyal savers are being increasingly harmed.

While it’s welcome to hear the financial regulator is monitoring this situation, we will be keeping a close eye to ensure they act on these assurances. Consumers should continue to shop around to get the best rates possible.

“With banks set to release their first quarter results in the coming weeks, we will be monitoring whether firms are continuing to squeeze profits from their loyal savings customers.

Stocks have dipped in London in early trading, with the FTSE 100 down 16 points or 0.2% at 7882 points.

Yesterday, the blue-chip narrowly missed out on its 9th daily rise in a row, which would have been the best run since 2019.

UBS: One more Bank of England rate hike coming, in May

Analysts at Swiss bank UBS agree with Michael Saunders’s prediction.

They also forecast the Bank of England will lift interest rates by a quarter-of-one-percent in May.

And that could be the last rise in the current cycle, with any future increases ‘highly dependent’ on the path of inflation, and the jobs market.

UBS economist Anna Titareva told clients that “We now expect one more 25bp hike from the BoE on 11 May”, explaining:

After the last meeting on 23 March, when the BoE delivered a 25bp hike bringing the policy rate to 4.25% and has, in our view, turned more balanced/dovish around the inflation outlook, we said that this was probably the last hike of the cycle with our base case foreseeing no rate change at the next meeting on 11 May.

However, in light of the strong March labour market report and CPI inflation data, both signalling slower-than-expected improvement, we now expect the BoE to deliver one more 25bp rate hike in May, bringing Bank Rate to 4.5% with the policy rate decisions after that remaining highly data dependent on the labour market and inflation data.

Improved profit margins have helped retail chain WH Smith to boost its earnings.

WH Smiths, which operates stores at travel hubs and on the high street, has reported pre-tax profits more than doubled to £45m in the six months to 28 February, up from £14m a year ago.

It benefited from the return of travellers to airports and train stations, as well as “improved margins”.

Revenues across the group rose by 41% to £859m, up from £608m.

Carl Cowling, group chief executive of WH Smith, said:

“We have seen a strong performance in the first half of the year, further strengthening our confidence in the prospects of our global travel business.

Updated

Price rises have lifted revenues at consumer healthcare group Haleon.

Haleon, which was spun out of pharmaceuticals group GSK last year, has reported “strong” trading in the first quarter of this year. Organic revenue has grown by 9.9%, with price +7.1%, and also volume mix +2.8%

Haleon’s brands include Sensodyne toothpaste, Panadol painkillers and anti-inflammatory gel Voltarol.

Its respiratory health division recorded particularly strong revenue, due to a continued strong cold and flu season.

Thanks to this strong start to the year, Haleon expects its full-year organic revenue growth will be towards the upper end of its guidance range of 4-6%.

Shares have hit a record high this morning, at 350p, having floated at 330p last summer.

Updated

Discount retailer Pepco is benefiting from increased demand from cost-conscious shoppers in the cost of living crisis.

Pepco, which owns Poundland in the UK and the Pepco and Dealz brands in Europe, reported a 22.8% rise in revenue in the last six months.

Sales were boosted by new store openings, with 166 new outlets added in the period.

But stripping that out, like-for-like (LFL) revenues were up 11.1% in the first half of its financial year.

Poundland Group grew its like-for-like sales by 4.9% .

Trevor Masters, CEO of Pepco Group, said demand remained strong during the last quarter:

“Pepco has recorded an encouraging second-quarter trading performance against the backdrop of a continuing inflationary environment for both customers and the business.

Larry Elliott: Companies must show restraint on price rises

Inflation is proving hard to shift, and that spells big trouble for a government fast running out of excuses for why the cost of the weekly grocery shop is rising at its fastest rate since 1977, our economics editor Larry Elliott writes.

Global energy prices have collapsed, and the price of food on international commodity markets is coming down too, so it’s hard any longer to blame Vladimir Putin for inflation being so sticky. Nor is it immediately obvious why junior doctors should be the fall guys.

Despite attempts by ministers to finger workers for the persistence of the cost of living crisis, there is no real evidence that this is the case. Both the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank have looked at whether higher wages are driving up prices, and neither of those august bodies thinks that is happening.

What they have found is that companies have been able to use the crisis to drive up prices and boost profit margins. The IMF and the ECB wouldn’t put it in these terms, of course, but both support the idea that companies are gouging their customers when they can. The non-technical term for what is going on is greedflation…

More here:

Michael Saunders: One more UK interest rate hike likely in May

Michael Saunders, a former policymaker at the Bank of England, predicts inflation will force one more increase in UK interest rates, next month.

Saunders told Radio 4’s Today Programme that the surge in energy prices was the overwhelming factor driving up inflation, pushing up household bills, business costs, and food production prices.

But Saunders hopes that we are “now, just about, finally at the turning point”, and that inflation will fall “pretty sharply” over the rest of this year.

The BoE’s target is to keep inflation at 2% in the medium term.

Saunders predicts the Bank’s monetary policy committee will vote to raise interest rates in May, for the 12th time in a row, from 4.25% to 4.5%. But that could be a “final hike”, he predicts, followed by a long period where interest rates are fairly stable.

He says:

I think they’re probably almost done now….

The big tightening cycle, of interest rates going up meeting after meeting, I think that’s largely over.

The money markets, though, show investors predict rates could rise to almost 5% by the end of this year.

Updated

The president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has said energy and food costs are “unprecedented” in her lifetime as soaring food costs continued to push up inflation.

Minette Batters told the environmental audit committee yesterday that farming “is seeing contraction in all sectors” due to a combination of rising prices for feed, fuel and energy and the failure of primary production to get into the bill discount scheme for energy intensive industries.

When asked if prices could begin to stabilise to pre-Ukraine invasion levels, Ms Batters cautioned:

“I don’t think we can give any assurance that things are going to change anytime soon.”

Batters was speaking after yesterday’s inflation report showed food price inflation over 19%, the highest in 45 years.

She added:

“These costs are unprecedented in my lifetime. And actually looking at sort of the general economist views, I don’t think anybody’s seen anything like it since the post World War era.”

Updated

Introduction: Investors push large consumer firms over price hikes

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

Major goods makers are under pressure to rein in price rises, after UK inflation stuck in double-digit levels last month.

Yesterday’s news that UK consumer prices climbed by 10.1% in the year to March, with food prices rocketing 19%, has focused attention on ‘greedflation’, the process where firms use rising costs and supply chain bottlenecks as an excuse to pump up their profits.

Yesterday, Dr George Dibb, head of the Centre for Economic Justice at the IPPR thinktank, suggested authorities should take a closer look at corporate profits.

“While families struggle to make ends meet, some companies continue to make higher profits from these price hikes, ignoring the impact on consumers.

It’s time for policymakers to look at ‘greedflation’ and prioritise reining in corporate profits, instead of blaming workers’ wages for driving up inflation.

Major consumer goods makers have been hit by rising energy costs and commodity prices, and also lifted wages as workers sought protection from inflation.

Profit margins have been protected by price hikes, though.

Unilever, for example, recently reported underlying sales growth of 9.0% for 2022, driven by price growth of 11.3%. Volumes declined 2.1%, suggesting that many consumers swallowed these price hikes on goods such as Dove, Ben & Jerry’s and Marmite.

But now, wholesale energy prices are much lower than early in the Ukraine war, and supply chain problems are easing after China ended pandemic restrictions. And some investors are now pushing corporates to ease their price increases.

Tineke Frikkee, a fund manager at Unilever and Reckitt investor Waverton Asset Management, told Reuters:

“What have (price hikes) done to volumes and thus to margins? What has that done to their market share as competitors may be pricing lower and gaining share?”

Frikkee added that companies should instead be investing in product innovation, saying:

“Price rises should gradually decelerate as input costs do the same.”

Supermarkets, who must choose whether to pass on these increases to shoppers, or absorb it into their margins, will be pushing goods makers to hold back on price rises.

Andrew Choi, a portfolio manager at San Francisco-based Parnassus Investments, explains:

“Staples companies are getting pressure to ease up on price increases because it hurts foot traffic for retailers, and some retailers have a lot of leverage.”

Tesco blamed “significant operating cost inflation” as it reported a halving in profits last year, with inflation forcing consumers to cut back.

Wednesday’s UK inflation report showed that food and non-alcoholic beverages costs are up 19.1% over the last year, while restaurants & cafes have put their prices up by ‘just’ 10.4%. That suggests supermarkets have found it easier to persuade customers to swallow higher prices.

Wholesale food prices worldwide have been falling since their surge after the invasion of Ukraine, according to the UN, but this is not yet noticable in UK shops.

As the Office for National Statistics told the BBC.

“You would expect to see [global food price falls] reflected in supermarkets but we’re not there yet.”

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, predicts that food price inflation is likely to slow in the coming months.

The BRC said:

“As food production costs peaked in October 2022, we expect consumer food prices to start coming down over the next few months.”

Consumers will hope they’re right….

The agenda

  • 9.30am BST: Realtime UK economic activity and business insights data

  • 10am BST: Eurozone trade balance for February

  • 12.30pm BST: ECB Monetary Policy Meeting Accounts

  • 1.30pm BST: US weekly jobless figures

Updated

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