The FTSE 100 decided to take a breather this morning, after China's People's Bank opted to keep its key interest rates unchanged. The one-year loan prime rate holds steady at 3.1%, while the five-year LPR sits comfortably at 3.6%. This decision signals a stable monetary policy from the East.
Across the continent, Germany's economic data threw a curveball with a surprise 0.1% monthly deflation in producer prices for December, defying the expected 0.3% rise. However, annual inflation nudged up to 0.8%.
Stateside, the financial markets took a day off in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. But before the pause, Wall Street wrapped up the previous week on a high note. The Dow Jones climbed 0.8%, the S&P 500 rose by 1.0%, and the Nasdaq Composite soared 1.5%.
In the corporate arena, BT Group's Openreach is on a mission to bring the UK into the digital age, announcing an expansion of its Full Fibre network. This ambitious project will cover over 960,000 premises across 163 new exchange locations, aiming to retire the old copper-based services in favor of ultrafast digital connections. Meanwhile, AstraZeneca scored a win with the US FDA's approval of Datroway, a new treatment for metastatic HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, developed with Daiichi Sankyo.
Banco Santander is reportedly contemplating a strategic retreat from its UK operations, following a series of challenges, including lower returns and a hefty £295 million provision for potential car loan mis-selling costs. Adding to the corporate intrigue, Entain finds itself under the microscope as the UK's accounting watchdog investigates KPMG's audit of its 2022 financials. In the ever-evolving landscape of global finance, these developments remind us that the only thing certain is uncertainty itself.
Things to read today:
- Is the consensus on the rising dollar too... consensual? (Financial Times).
- Finance bends the knee to Trump (Bloomberg).
- What do "over-forecasters" predict for 2025? (The Economist).
- 2024, the year hedge funds got their mojo back (Wall Street Journal).