Aurelia Butler

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK’s grocery watchdog has launched an investigation into whether Amazon has been delaying payments to food suppliers after preliminary “evidence” was brought to its attention.The Groceries Code Adjudicator, which helps ensure the UK’s largest grocers treat suppliers fairly, said in a statement on Friday “it has reasonable grounds to suspect” Amazon had delayed payments to suppliers between March 2022 and June 2025. Amazon sells groceries in the UK through its own website and a small chain of Amazon Fresh convenience stores, but has struggled to mount a serious challenge to the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury’s. Since 2022, Amazon’s grocery operation has faced increased scrutiny in the UK. It has been required to comply with the Groceries Supply Code of Practice, a set of guidelines on how retailers should manage supplier relationships, after surpassing £1bn in annual sales. The GCA said it would look into the nature, extent and impact of practices that may have resulted in Amazon delaying payments, and would focus in particular on the period since January 2024 to the present. The watchdog’s investigation comes after it warned Amazon last year it must swiftly demonstrate compliance with GSCOP, following complaints made to the GCA by Amazon suppliers about the company’s conduct. The GCA decided to launch an investigation after monitoring the remedial actions taken by Amazon and receiving further “detailed evidence” from its suppliers. The adjudicator Mark White said on Friday the alleged breaches could expose Amazon’s suppliers to excessive risk and unexpected costs. If a breach is found, the GCA can force retailers to publish details of the case or, in the most serious breaches, impose a fine of up to 1 per cent of their annual UK revenues.The GCA, established in 2013, conducted its first major investigation into Tesco, following its accounting scandal in 2014. The UK’s largest supermarket chain was found to have deliberately delayed payments to suppliers to help it meet its own financial targets. On the whole, fewer grocery suppliers were experiencing issues with major retailers, the GCA said last year.The GCA on Friday also flagged “other issues” at Amazon, relating to its practices around delisting products and unspecified payments made by suppliers, which could include an obligation to contribute to marketing costs, for example. The watchdog threatened to launch a further investigation unless these other issues are resolved. Amazon said that it took the grocery code “incredibly seriously” and would co-operate fully with the watchdog during the investigation. It was “disappointed” with the probe, but would use the investigation as an opportunity to demonstrate its compliance. The company added: “We have already made significant improvements . . . including to payment practices.” More

It’s time for another FTAV Q&A, as we continue to try to have interesting chats with hopefully interesting people doing hopefully interesting things in and around finance, economics and business.As Robin mentioned last week, we’re on the lookout for future victims interlocutors, so do let us know in the comments if there’s someone you’d like us to speak to!This week, we caught up with Freya Beamish, chief economist at TS Lombard and a veteran of the “FTAV has a conversation” genre. Here’s a transcript of our chat, which has been edited for clarity and length. FTAV. Hi Freya. Let’s start with a broad question. You’ve been chief economist at TS Lombard for about four years. What makes a good macroeconomist?I think that question has to be answered in the context of the type of economy that we have right at this moment in time. Sometimes it’s going to be one type of economist that is going to excel: it might be a more monetarist-leaning economist, it might be a more Keynesian-leaning economist and that’s going to depend on the context.Sometimes you can sort of get away with it for a while, but in today’s context, there’s just so many shocks that macroeconomic debate is leaving a very clear trace in markets. So if you’re wedded to any one type of economic dogma you are probably going to be wrong quite a lot of the time. It’s much more about picking the right model for the right moment in time.That Muhammad Ali quote comes to mind: you win the fight not in the ring, but on the road. It’s about having a playbook.As an outfit, TS Lombard has a tendency to refer a lot to what else is being said within the broad research world. Is that a conscious choice? It’s really interesting that you’ve picked that up. It’s definitely a conscious choice that we are trying to understand what the debate is, how much of that debate is priced in, and which narrative is driving at this moment in time. I’ll bring it back to what I think is the most important economic concept that is shifting — and therefore where people are most likely to be either proven right or wrong over short time periods. That is the bond/equity correlation, which in turn is a function of the type of shock that is hitting the economy. A lot of us are used to a very demand-led story where there aren’t so many negative supply shocks. And in fact, for most of my career we’ve been living under this positive supply shock of the demographic dividend that has been provided by hyperglobalisation. And now that’s reversing.Do you think a conscious consideration of wider debates makes you more likely to be a contrarian?There’s actually a very strong role for the contrarian in this environment. People are taking such extreme views because we’re essentially at an inflection point. Nobody has a crystal ball, nobody knows what the ultimate truth is, but that debate is playing out literally month-by-month in markets. So if you can — especially if you’re a sort of a shorter-term enough investor — get ahead of that and see what the triggers are, identify when there might be a sort of a fragile narrative coming into the market, you can play both that fragile narrative and play the invalidation of that fragile narrative on the other side.One of the big market stories at the moment is gold. A big narrative driving gold investors is an almost-millenarian notion that we’re approaching a moment of huge fiscal adjustment, and a major shift in the way governments approach spending. Do you agree? And what does it say about the world that these arguments are becoming so prominent?Even though in general I don’t worry as much about fiscal sustainability as a lot of investors do, I do think gold has staying power. I think we’re seeing a genuine shift away from the dollar as central to the global financial system, to instead a multi-polar financial system as it pertains to currencies.That’s reflective of the shift from a unipolar to multi-polar global order, simply because there’s a demand for a non-dollar by countries that are afraid of being sanctioned after the experience of Russia. And at a deeper level, the reason why people have wanted to hold the dollar is because of its strong risk-adjusted returns. That risk adjustment is very much a function of the rule of law and institutions. [With Trump] people are going to want more compensation to hold these assets.What is your approach to thinking clearly about such tricky, interconnected issues? There’s a nimbleness argument. I have my belief about what is going to happen in the global economy over the next three, four, five years. That is fundamentally rooted in political economy rather than just, you know, correlations from the 2010s which are all pretty much out the window. But in the current context — for one thing, even if I am right, I’m not going to be validated in markets every month of the year. And so to be useful to people and to be useful to investors, I have to say, ‘OK, well, actually what I think about the long term is just not going to be relevant this month. And it’s going to go in the opposite direction from that.’ It’s about continuously updating your priors, and having a deep grounding for your long-term belief — which, to me, is that the political economic cycle is not necessarily turning, but reaching serious limits.You’re quite a collaborative outfit. How do you reconcile your views as a team?The way that we stay nimble is to stay small. That does put a lot of pressure on us individually, but we structure the team so that our more junior economists are thematic. So they will go across countries and they’ll get the opportunity to work with a lot of different, more experienced people. And they’ll get the geographical basis so that as they grow they are already schooled in the global economy as an entity rather than just siloed research for each different region. So we’re very holistic and the way that we do that is to sort of stay small and develop really trusting relationships.We like to laugh at each other as well, Dario [Perkins] and I have that kind of relationship where we can knock chunks out of each other and do it with a smile on our face. There’s a balance between having a cohesive team and also allowing for individual creativity.So as a chief economist, I would send [a junior economist] out there and say: ‘OK, see what you come up with’. And they might notice something that I haven’t noticed, and if they convince me then we’ll have an open debate about things. And I think clients often find that process of seeing both sides of the argument quite useful. What are the big economic trends that you expect will define the next decade or so?My concern is that the labour share of income in the US is very historically low. Inequality has risen very rapidly at both poles of the global economy in the US and China, and has risen in other ways in other places. There’s lots of different ways of thinking about inequality. That’s the underlying driver for a lot of the things that we are seeing. I don’t think — when we’re thinking really big picture here — I actually don’t think that democracy has entirely failed at this point in time. I think democracy was tested in the 1970s and it managed to stand up at a moment in time when labour power was too strong, and push back in favour of the power of the owners of capital essentially. Now it’s being tested at the other end of the spectrum, at the other end the super cycle. And I think the so-called liberal left essentially neglected that group of people that has now become an electorate for populist movements. Some of the policies being prescribed I don’t find to be particularly useful in addressing the issues that specific electorate is facing. My worry is that if that electorate is not addressed and to some degree appeased, then this trend that we seem to be on in terms of testing democracy can only get worse. I don’t find the left/right divide particularly useful at this stage in the game. I think policies are being offered from all sorts of places that could actually start to shift that social threat.From the sublime to the ridiculous: you’re based in London, which means as well as thinking about the future of the planet you also have to think about the Bank of England. Your current call is that you think the Bank will scrap active quantitative tightening at the end of the year. Firstly, why is that? And secondly: the Bank uniquely jumped feet first into this process of active QT, despite being unsure about how it would work. Why do central bankers behave this way?The cynical answer would just be virtue signalling, but I think there is somewhat more to it than that. I don’t buy all this stuff about, ‘Oh, we need to contract the balance sheet so that we have space to expand it again in future’. In an accounting sense, that’s just not how it works.‘Virtue signalling’ is an interesting phrase to use in the context of macroeconomic policy. What virtue are they signalling?A clean balance sheet and not being too involved in markets, and I do hold some sympathy for that. Moving away from [quantitative easing] was, I think, important. But going to the extent of sticking its neck out with active QT wasn’t necessary, and has probably contributed to the underperformance of gilts.Should the Bank of England even care if QT is having non-disorderly effects on the gilt market?Gilt yields should be reflective of the real economy to as much of an extent as possible. In Japan, the [Japanese government bond] yield has been useless in terms of actually playing the role that government debt should play in the real economy. So it’s not just that I don’t think that they should do too much QT, it’s also that I didn’t think they should not do too much QE. And maybe central banks have relied too much on balance sheets in both directions.Let’s talk about the pandemic. We’re five years on from the start of Covid-19’s economic impact, and we’re still seeing its effects on the economic cycle. When people look back at this period in economic history, how do you think they’ll think about the pandemic? Was it a catalyst for changes that were already occurring, or did it completely change things?I think it certainly catalysed some of the big trends. In some ways, it’s damaged the political repair that was starting to happen prior to Covid. I talked about the so-called liberal left having just somewhat abdicated their responsibility for the working class in developed nations. We also need to think about central banks. Central banks in the ’80s were sort of set up to guard against excessive power of labour, which was the necessary prescription at that moment in time. And then you had hyperglobalisation, and nobody really needed to push back against worker power in that environment, but there was still a mentality of ‘Oh my gosh, at the end of the cycle, wage growth is picking up. We mustn’t let that turn into a wage price spiral’. And actually, that’s precisely the moment in the cycle when workers are getting sort of their share of the pie, because wage growth lags the rest of the cycle.So if you’re continuously, in every cycle, cutting off the part of the cycle where workers get their share of compensation, then the labour share of income is going to continue to decline. I think that’s part of some of the big trends that we saw in the US over the past several decades. And going into Covid, we did see some beginnings of acceptance of that. There was a lot of research coming out of the Fed suggesting that the end of the cycle is when minorities get pulled into the labour market, and that the end of the cycle is actually a really important part that shouldn’t necessarily just be cut off for fear of wage price spirals. Then they got transitory [inflation] wrong and they had to react against all of that and the whole question of are we back in the ’70s reared its head and all of those knee-jerk reactions came back with a vengeance.It’s very sad and ironic, but before Trump’s re-election the Fed had just managed to get to the stage where it was saying, ‘Yeah, OK, let’s make sure we’re prioritising this soft landing. Let’s prioritise the labour market trends’. That was the read. And then because of the pressure that is coming out of the political establishment on to the Fed at this stage in time, they’ve had to sort of be quite standing their ground effectively and not just caving in.So instead of a continuation of the policies that perhaps were starting to address those imbalances, then the Fed is having to concern itself with tariffs and the threat to independence — and the Republican Party and Trump then feel justified in turning around and saying, ‘You know, these guys have messed things up’. More

This article is an on-site version of our FirstFT newsletter. Subscribers can sign up to our Asia, Europe/Africa or Americas edition to get the newsletter delivered every weekday morning. Explore all of our newsletters hereGood morning. Today we’ll be covering:Trump’s deliberation on whether to attack IranFrance’s plan to topple the dollarThe SEC’s regulatory about-faceAnd Mark Zuckerberg’s macho makeoverDonald Trump has said he will decide whether to join Israel’s attack on Iran “within the next two weeks”, as the shadow of the 2003 Iraq invasion and the president’s promise to end America’s “forever wars” during the election campaign hang over US foreign policy strategy.What we know: Trump appeared to signal that he was delaying his decision about entering the war, even as American military assets are being sent to the region. European stocks rose and Brent crude prices fell on the news.How are other countries responding? Britain, France and Germany are set to hold the first high-level, face-to-face talks with Iran’s foreign minister today in Geneva, with aims to agree a framework to restart monitoring Iran’s nuclear programme. They will also discuss whether Tehran could cut its ballistic missile stockpile.You can follow the latest updates on the FT’s live blog.Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today and over the weekend:Economic data: The European Central Bank issues its economic bulletin, while the UK reports on public sector finances. The US Conference Board publishes leading indicators.Results: Accenture, Berkeley, CarMax, Darden Restaurants and Kroger report. How well did you keep up with the news this week? Take our quiz.Five more top stories1. The new Securities and Exchange Commission chair has withdrawn 14 rules proposed by his predecessor, embracing a light-touch approach to regulation and reversing the aggressive style of Gary Gensler. The rules scrapped by Paul Atkins range from climate disclosures to cryptocurrency exchanges and artificial intelligence.2. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will impose measures to counter the oversupply of steel and aluminium imports, including potentially increasing levies on the US. Trump’s 50 per cent tariffs on the two metals has been “catastrophic” for a domestic industry already buffeted by production shutdowns and widespread job losses. 3. France has lobbied EU countries to pledge additional measures aimed at raising the euro’s profile as a global reserve currency, as part of Paris’s campaign to encourage the bloc to commit to more joint borrowing. Trump’s policies have weakened the dominance of the dollar and challenged the safe-haven status of US Treasuries, providing a generational opportunity for the EU.4. The BBC is threatening legal action against AI search engine Perplexity, in its first effort to clamp down on tech groups scraping its vast troves of content to develop the technology. The broadcaster told the US start-up to delete stored material used for AI training and asked for compensation for alleged IP infringement. 5. Inditex’s chief executive says the conditions for its return to Russia are “certainly not” in place, more than two years after the Zara owner sold its local business following the invasion of Ukraine. Moscow previously claimed that western companies would begin coming back by June this year.FT Magazine© Cat SimsMark Zuckerberg’s transformation, from a computer nerd skulking around in grey T-shirts to a martial artist advocating for more “masculine energy” in the corporate world, shocked liberals at Meta. But his closest allies say this is who he was all along. Hannah Murphy delves into the truth about the Big Tech chief’s macho-man makeover.We’re also reading . . . Chart of the day Labubu, a collectable elf doll taking TikTok by storm, has sent its Chinese maker, Pop Mart, stratospheric. The company’s market capitalisation is now far ahead of competitor toymakers, such as the US’s Mattel and Hasbro.Take a break from the newsMozambique’s Gorongosa National Park is flourishing after years of devastation during the country’s civil war. David Pilling takes you on a tour through the world’s most ambitious conservation project.A lion sleeps on a tree branch in Gorongosa National Park More

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.France has lobbied fellow EU countries to pledge additional measures aimed at raising the euro’s profile as a global reserve currency, as part of Paris’ long-standing campaign for more joint borrowing. A draft EU statement circulated ahead of a leaders’ summit later this month, seen by the Financial Times, asks the bloc’s institutions including the European Central Bank “to explore actions to reinforce the international role of the euro”. The push was prompted by US President Donald Trump’s erratic trade and economic policy, which has weakened the dollar’s dominant role, opening up space for the Eurozone’s 25-year-old currency to become more attractive for international transactions.Paris argues that investors are looking for a safe haven from US Treasury debt, so the EU should issue more joint debt to service the market, according to officials familiar with its thinking. France and other heavily indebted countries, including Italy and Spain, have long pushed for more common borrowing in order to be able to spend more on priorities such as defence without adding to their national burden. “There is a great opportunity for the euro to play a bigger role globally,” said IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva at a meeting of EU finance ministers in Luxembourg on Thursday. “When I look at the search for quality safe assets, at this point it is facing a constraint on the offering of these assets. It is not by chance that so much now is being parked in gold,” Georgieva added, in reference to ECB data showing that gold has overtaken the euro as reserve asset for central banks. ECB president Christine Lagarde wrote in the FT this week that this was “a ‘global euro’ moment”, although the bloc would need to reform to seize it, including by creating an “ample supply of safe assets”. “Despite a strong aggregate fiscal position, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 89 per cent compared with 124 per cent in the US — the supply of high-quality safe assets is lagging behind,” Lagarde wrote. “Recent estimates suggest outstanding sovereign bonds with at least a AA rating amount to just under 50 per cent of GDP in the EU, versus over 100 per cent in the US.”An EU official said this was a “classic Lagarde move, pitching French ideas” such as joint borrowing. Philip Lane, the ECB’s chief economist, said in a speech earlier this month that the design of the euro area had resulted in an “undersupply of safe assets” and that one way of responding to this would be by issuing fresh common bonds to fund European-wide projects. However another option would entail generating “a larger stock of safe assets from the current stock of national bonds,” he said. He cited a paper by Olivier Blanchard of the Peterson Institute and Ángel Ubide of Citadel that proposes replacing a proportion of bonds issued by individual European governments with Eurobonds. The decision to issue more joint EU debt can only be taken unanimously. Germany and the Netherlands, who would have to pay back a greater share of the debt, are staunchly opposed to more common borrowing.A senior EU diplomat said the commission will take into account Berlin’s opposition. But if the situation deteriorates “pressure will grow especially as some member states’ economy is in — well — not so good condition”.The EU is already struggling to repay the almost €800bn of common debt it issued during the Covid-19 pandemic to fund economic stimulus.The European Commission estimates €30bn per year, or a fifth of the budget from 2028, will be spent on repayments, unless it refinances the debt. France says that issuing more debt on top would create enough liquidity to tempt investors, according to two people familiar with the matter. “If more member states got their credit rating up, there would be no shortage of euro denominated safe assets,” said an EU diplomat.A spokesperson for the French permanent representation in Brussels declined to comment.European Council President António Costa, who will chair the June 26-27 summit, has put the role of the euro on the agenda as part of a broader discussion about deepening the bloc’s still fragmented single market amid the current geopolitical turmoil.Costa told the Financial Times that better integration of the single market and cross-EU rules on savings and investments would “reinforce the euro’s global standing, building on the EU’s position as an open, stable, and reliable partner”.The dollar’s role was already diminishing before Trump took office. At the end of 2024, the dollar accounted for 58 per cent of global foreign exchange reserves, down from 65 per cent 10 years before, according to think-tank Chatham House. The euro currently accounts for around 19 per cent of foreign exchange reserves, according to the IMF, a similar level to 2000 when it was created.Additional reporting by Sam Fleming in London More

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.UK credit card borrowing costs have soared to the highest levels in nearly two decades as falls in personal loan rates have paved the way to fresh options for consumers to tackle debt.The average annual percentage rate (APR) from the start of March until the start of June rose to 35.7 per cent, the highest on record since at least 2006, according to data provider Moneyfacts UK.The average interest rate on cash withdrawals from credit cards also hit record levels over the same period, increasing from 29.4 per cent a year ago to 30 per cent today.The rise in credit card costs came despite a cut in the base rate in May by the Bank of England from 4.5 per cent to 4.25 per cent.“Consumers who use their credit cards for everyday purchases will be disappointed to see borrowing costs rise to the highest point since records began almost two decades ago,” said Rachel Springall of Moneyfacts.She acknowledged that “a combination of factors” had led to the increase, including some providers, such as Halifax, increasing their purchasing and cash rates during the period.According to analysis from the Money Charity, the financial education charity, the average credit card debt per household stands at £2,579.At the same time as the rise in credit card borrowing costs, there were better deals on offer for personal loans. Over the March to June period, the average unsecured personal loan rate for £3,000 and £5,000 deals over three years dropped to their lowest since June 2023.Rates for £7,500 and £10,000 loans over five years also recorded a slight reduction in the period compared with same time last year.Springall said an unsecured personal loan was a “sensible choice” for consumers struggling with multiple debts who are looking to consolidate them, in particular if they are paying a high rate of interest on credit cards.Lenders are also offering a wider variety of deals to help people manage their debt, with the number of interest-free purchase offers available jumping to 64 in the March to June period from the 58 over the same time last year. The average interest-free purchase term on credit cards rose from 267 days in March to 286 in June. More

Israel’s attacks on Iran threaten to cut China off from critical oil trading partners, highlighting its need for greater energy independence and disrupting Beijing’s hopes for a bigger role in the region. For years, China has used its relationship with Iran to expand its influence in the Middle East, while making cheap Iranian crude, and Gulf supplies more broadly, a bedrock of the energy mix for the world’s biggest buyer of oil.Chinese President Xi Jinping said this week that all parties to the conflict between Israel and Iran should work “as soon as possible to prevent further escalation of tensions”. China has said the US should not interfere with its “normal trade” with Iran and has opposed US-led sanctions.“Of course, China is worried [by the latest attacks],” said Gedaliah Afterman, an expert on China and the Middle East at the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations in Israel. “If this situation continues to escalate, then they lose quite a bit, both in terms of their energy security and Iran as a strategic card that China holds.”Since US-led sanctions on Iran’s nuclear programme were stepped up in late 2018, Beijing and Tehran have strengthened ties.Beijing has become Tehran’s most important economic lifeline, buying the vast majority of Iranian oil shipments and supplying the country with electronics, vehicles and machinery, and nuclear power equipment. Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.Last year, Iranian oil accounted for as much as 15 per cent of the crude shipped to the world’s second-biggest economy. Overall, China last year imported about 11.1mn barrels of oil a day, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Chinese purchases of Iranian crude edged higher through most of 2023 and 2024 but started to ease late last year as the threat of new US sanctions increased, according to data from cargo tracking research group Kpler and Bernstein.Iran exported 2.4mn barrels of crude a day in September 2024, with China accounting for 1.6mn barrels. By April, Iranian shipments had fallen to 2.1mn barrels a day, of which China accounted for 740,000 barrels. Malaysia is also an important exporter to China as cargoes shipped from Iran are relabelled or transferred to avoid sanctions, analysts said.Analysts from Fitch Ratings this week said that, “even in the unlikely event that all Iranian exports are lost”, they could be replaced by spare capacity from Opec-plus producers.Other, more severe, energy disruptions could emerge. The war, which is at risk of spilling over into a broader regional conflict, has already sparked threats from Iran that it could block the Strait of Hormuz.Hundreds of billions of dollars in oil and gas are shipped through the waterway to China from nearby Gulf States each year, including Saudi Arabia, China’s biggest supplier of crude outside Russia. A view of a ship on fire in the area of reported collision between two oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz More

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Consumer confidence in the UK rose for the second consecutive month in June, supported by a more positive economic outlook, according to a closely watched survey that raises hopes of stronger household spending.The GfK consumer confidence index — a measure of how people view their personal finances and broader economic prospects — rose two points to minus 18 in June, the research group said on Friday.It followed a three-point improvement in May and took the score to levels last seen at the end of 2024, before US President Donald Trump announced tariffs on most American imports. However, it remained well below the 2015-19 average of minus 5.6.Neil Bellamy, consumer insights director at GfK, said the rise in confidence was “driven by improvements in how consumers see the general economy”.But, he warned, sentiment remained “fragile”, citing rising oil prices linked to conflict in the Middle East and continued tensions over tariffs. “Now is certainly not the time to hope for the proverbial ‘light at the end of the tunnel’,” he said.Policymakers monitor consumer confidence as an indicator of future spending, which affects economic growth. Consumer spending has remained weak over the past year despite wages rising faster than inflation. Household consumption contributed only 0.1 percentage point to the 0.7 per cent overall economic growth in the first three months of the year. With interviews conducted in the first half of June, the GfK index showed that expectations for the general economic outlook over the next 12 months rose five points to minus 28. However, the index tracking respondents’ views of their future personal finances remained unchanged at 2.Improved economic data for the first quarter and new UK-US trade agreements, which reduce the risk posed by Trump’s import tariffs, have led economists to raise their growth forecasts. Analysts expect UK economic growth of 1 per cent in 2025, up from 0.7 per cent they forecast in April, according to data by Consensus Economics, a company that averages leading forecasters. A separate survey by the British Retail Consortium this week also indicated that overall sentiment is improving. The findings showed that the proportion of people expecting the economy to improve over the next three months rose to 34 per cent in June, from 28 per cent in May and 24 per cent in April. Spending intentions also increased. Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, said younger generations had registered “the biggest improvement” in both their economic outlook and personal finance expectations. This may partly reflect a rise in the minimum wage in April, she noted. More