Aurelia Butler

In its second reading of gross domestic product released on Tuesday, the National Statistics Institute (INE) revised fourth-quarter growth slightly higher yet kept the annual figure unchanged.It said the economy grew 0.3% in the last quarter of 2022, up from 0.2% estimated a month ago and the same as in the third quarter. Year-on-year growth reached 3.2%, up from its flash estimate of 3.1%.However, INE said the contribution of domestic demand to year-on-year GDP was only 1.9 percentage points (pp) after 3.2 pp in the previous quarter, while external demand contributed with 1.1 pp compared to 1.6 pp in the third quarter.Hit by high inflation, private consumption – which represents two-thirds of GDP – grew just 2.7% between October and December compared to 4.3% in the previous three months. Quarter-on-quarter, household consumption expenditures decreased by 0.5% despite high inflation, while they had grown by 1.1% in the previous quarter. Portuguese consumer prices rose 8.2% year-on-year in February in a slowdown from 8.4% reported in the previous month, flash data from INE showed on Tuesday.Still, core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, accelerated to 7.2% from 7.0% in January.The INE said investment fell 1.2% year-on-year in the fourth quarter after a 1.6% increase in the July-September period, while exports growth halved to 8.1% year-on-year from the previous three months’ 16.3% despite the key tourism sector’s recovery to near pre-pandemic levels.The government projects expansion to slow to just 1.3% in 2023, with private consumption almost stagnating as families struggle with high energy and food prices alongside rising interest rates and slowing exports. More

Investing.com — The U.S. releases January data for house prices, amid signs of an incipient revival in the housing market. Consumer confidence data is also due. Bets on European Central Bank rate hikes reach a new peak after hot inflation data in Spain and France. Target beats expectations with its quarterly profit but its guidance for the coming year is weak. Rupert Murdoch acknowledges in a deposition that Fox News hosts endorsed false claims about the 2020 presidential election being stolen, and oil is higher ahead of U.S. inventory data later. Here’s what you need to know in financial markets on Tuesday, 28th February.1. House prices, consumer confidence dueThe U.S. releases data on house price developments in January that will perhaps draw more interest than usual after surprisingly strong data for new and pending home sales, which suggested the market may be bottoming out.The S&P Composite house price index has fallen for the last five months in a row in response to higher borrowing costs and stretched affordability.Also due is the Chicago Federal Reserve’s purchasing managers index at 09:45 ET and the Conference Board’s consumer confidence survey at 10: 00 ET.2. ECB rate hike bets intensify after hot January CPI numbersEurozone bond yields continued their relentless march upward after stronger-than-expected inflation numbers from France and Spain, the region’s second and fourth largest economies, came in significantly above expectations in February.French consumer prices rose 0.9%, pushing the annual inflation rate up to 6.2%, and separate data showed that consumer spending was also surprisingly strong. In Spain, meanwhile, prices rose a hefty 1.0% on the month, against expectations for no change.Benchmark 2-year bond yields rose as much as six basis points, with the 10-year Bund yield hitting a new 12-year high of 2.66%, as traders shifted their expectations for peak ECB rates to nearly 4%.3. Stocks edge higher; Target reports high, but guides lowU.S. stock markets are struggling for direction in the overnight session, with attention likely to focus on month-end positioning in the relative absence of heavy fundamental news.By 06:30 ET, Dow Jones futures were up 43 points or 0.1%, while S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures were both up 0.2%. The benchmark cash indices had a moderately positive day on Monday, gaining by between 0.2% and 0.6%.The day’s big early release is Target (NYSE:TGT), which issued full-year guidance seriously below Street forecasts despite a handsome earnings beat in the fourth quarter.Other stocks likely to be in focus later include Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ:ZM), up 6.8% in premarket after evidence of it expanding its footprint among corporate clients. Its guidance for both current quarter and full year were well ahead of market expectations. By contrast, Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) is under pressure after missing Street forecasts. AutoZone (NYSE:AZO), Advance Auto Parts (NYSE:AAP) and Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE) are also all due to report early, while Monster Beverage (NASDAQ:MNST), HP (NYSE:HPQ) and Rivian (NASDAQ:RIVN) report after the close.4. Fox hosts endorsed false election claims, says MurdochRupert Murdoch admitted in a deposition that Fox News hosts including Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, and Maria Bartiromo had endorsed false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.The deposition was taken in connection with a defamation lawsuit brought against Fox (NASDAQ:FOXA) by Dominion Voting Systems. In it, Murdoch, Fox’s biggest shareholder, testified that he didn’t believe any claim of major election fraud, but acknowledged that the company had been under pressure to run with the claims rather than risk losing viewers to rivals such as One America and Newsmax.The disclosures come only a couple of weeks after Murdoch abandoned plans to reunite his media empire after splitting off Fox from News Corp. (NASDAQ:NWSA) – the owner of The Wall Street Journal and a string of U.K. and Australian news titles – a decade ago.5. Crude rises ahead of U.S. inventoriesCrude oil prices were a little stronger overnight, shrugging off weak economic data out of Japan, where industrial output fell by the most in seven months in January. Reports suggest that Saudi Arabia may raise its official selling prices again for April supported prices.Attention is likely to focus on U.S. inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute at 16:30 ET. These have shown commercial crude stocks rising steeply in the last eight weeks – by a combined total of more than 50 million barrels. However, they still remain at historically low levels as a result of last year’s market tightness.By 06:45 ET, U.S. crude futures were up 1.6% at $76.87 a barrel, their highest in nearly a week, while Brent crude was up 1.4% at $83.21 a barrel. More

The number is higher than a peak of 5.4% by September that traders are currently pricing in.”Aggregate demand needs to weaken significantly for inflation to return to the Fed’s target. Further supply-chain normalization and a slowdown in the labor market will help, but only to a degree,” said BofA in a noted dated Feb. 27.”Moreover, these processes are taking longer than we and markets were expecting,” it added.BofA’s hawkish stance comes after it recently added expectation for another quarter basis-point hike in June following similar moves in March and May, for a peak rate expectation of 5.25%-5.5%. The brokerage expects the U.S. economy to tip into recession by the third quarter of 2023. More

Rishi Sunak has hinted the UK government will press ahead with his new Brexit deal for Northern Ireland even if it is rejected by the Democratic Unionist party, saying the agreement was not about “any one political party”.The British prime minister arrived in Belfast on Tuesday to sell this week’s agreement with the EU to business leaders, arguing it would unlock fresh investment in the region.Sunak unveiled the so-called Windsor framework with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Monday, with both sides hailing it as a “new chapter” after years of fraught relations. On Tuesday morning the Democratic Unionists, the region’s main pro-UK party, welcomed progress but said concerns remained. Asked whether the agreement struck with the EU would go ahead without the support of the DUP, Sunak replied: “This is not necessarily about me or any one political party. This is about what is best for the people and communities and businesses of Northern Ireland and this agreement will make a hugely positive difference to them.”The DUP has boycotted the region’s Stormont assembly since May in protest at the previous agreement with the EU — known as the Northern Ireland protocol — which introduced checks on trade with Great Britain in a bid to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland.This week’s deal was reached under provisions set out by the protocol for the amendment of its rules, and does not technically require ratification — although Sunak has said the House of Commons will have a vote “at the appropriate time”.Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, DUP leader, said on Tuesday that this week’s agreement made progress “across a number of areas about which we had concerns”. The DUP says the fact the deal went beyond what the EU initially said was possible has vindicated its boycott of the assembly and push for sweeping change to the protocol. But Donaldson added: “We continue to have some concerns.”The new deal eliminates many checks for goods sent from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, ranging from sausages and medicines to oak trees, allows VAT cuts in the region for products such as beer, and sets out provisions for local legislators to object to new EU rules. But, despite the calls of some Eurosceptics, it does not end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over Northern Ireland.Sunak said he understood why unionist politicians would want to take “the time and the space to consider the details” before deciding whether to back the deal.But he held out the prospect of a big increase in investment should the DUP agree to the deal: “I’ve spent a lot of time engaging with business groups and what they say is if we get this resolved in the way that we have, that will unlock an enormous investment,” he said. “Remember, Northern Ireland has this very special position where it has access to the UK market, it has access to the EU market which makes it an incredibly attractive place to invest,” he added.The deal has appeared to mollify even some of the hardest-line Eurosceptics in the Conservative party, with early signs that any rebellion from the prime minister’s own backbenches could be limited.But it was not immediately clear whether it would achieve one of its key objectives: restoring Northern Ireland’s devolved government by ending the DUP’s boycott of the Stormont assembly.While some Brexiters describe the continued sway of EU law and the ECJ over Northern Ireland as a “democratic deficit”, Sunak said the biggest such deficit was that the suspension of the power-sharing agreement in Stormont. The deal includes one possible incentive to reconvene the assembly. It contains provisions for a new emergency “Stormont brake”, allowing the UK — at the request of 30 members from at least two parties in the assembly — to block updates to EU goods regulations in exceptional circumstances.“With the Stormont brake . . . the assembly and people of Northern Ireland are in control,” Sunak said.The prime minister added that the practical steps in his deal would end “any sense of a border in the Irish Sea”. He said there would only be checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland where officials suspect “criminality or smuggling” while Northern Irish businesses producing goods for the UK internal market would only have to follow “less than 3 per cent” of EU single market rules.

The DUP wants businesses and consumers to have “unfettered” access to goods from Britain and set out seven conditions for its endorsement of the new deal, including that there should be no Irish Sea border and the people of Northern Ireland should have a say in the rules that govern them.Under this week’s deal, a “green lane” with significantly reduced checks would be created at Irish Sea ports for goods destined to stay in Northern Ireland, while a “red lane” would be created for goods continuing into Ireland and the single market.Donaldson welcomed the so-called Stormont brake but said his party would study the fine print of the deal to decide whether it could “deliver on the areas of concern that we set out in our seven tests”.

Video: The Brexit effect: how leaving the EU hit the UK More