Thanks for joining me. Britain’s economy shrank more than expected in October, the Office for National Statistics said.
Gross domestic product shrank 0.3 percent in the month as Britain’s households and businesses grappled with interest rates at their highest in 15 years.
5 things to start your day
1) The Boots owner is scouring the London high street chain’s catalogue | Plans to go public could provide a much-needed boost to a sluggish stock market
2) UK’s biggest rail operator faces £1bn loss under labor renationalisation | Analysts at Peel Hunt cut First Group’s expected rail revenue to 2026
3) Triple lock and link the state pension to earnings, says the IFS | The think tank warns that current policy could cost an extra £24bn a year by 2050.
4) Jeremy Warner: Pro-lockdown fanatics can’t let covid rewrite history | Buck-passing and name-calling make good theatre, but have no practical value
5) Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: My heat pump experience in France | Our dilapidated stone farmhouse is a good test case of the claims and counter-claims of net zero technology.
What happened overnight
Asian stocks were mixed after Wall Street rose to its highest level since early 2022, just below its record peak, following a report showing that inflation in the United States was running as expected.
Benchmarks fell in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul, but rose in Tokyo and Sydney. Oil prices fell.
In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index added 0.3pc or 82.65 points to end at 32,926.35, while the broader Topix index added 0.1pc or 1.76 points to 2,354.92. In Australia the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.4pc to 7,263.30.
Chinese stocks fell after analysts said they were disappointed by the lack of major stimulus measures from a major economic planning conference that ended on Tuesday.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.7 percent to 16,252.67, while the Shanghai Composite index fell 0.5 percent to 2,989.15. South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.6 percent to 2,521.81.
Taiwan’s Taiex rose 0.1pc and Bangkok’s SET lost 0.5pc.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average of 30 leading US companies rose 0.4pc to 36,577.94, while the broader S&P 500 rose 0.5pc to 4,643.70. The Nasdaq composite, which is heavily weighted towards technology stocks, rose 0.7pc to 14,533.40.
The yield on 10-year US Treasuries fell three basis points to 4.2pc.