Aurelia Butler

Pharmacy chains like CVS have benefited from distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and tests during the pandemic. However in February, the company said it expected a big decline in COVID-19 vaccination and testing administered at its stores this year.The company administered more than six million COVID-19 tests and over eight million COVID-19 vaccines in the quarter, even as the pace of people getting boosters slowed down and U.S. reported a drop in testing.But the company said demand for over the counter COVID-19 tests was higher which added to its retail segment growth.The company, which operates one of the largest U.S. drugstore chains, manages pharmacy benefits for employers and health plans and owns the Aetna health insurer, said retail segment performance was also driven by inflation of branded drugs and higher prescription volumes.Same store sales rose 10.7% in the quarter, as easing coronavirus curbs boosted footfalls.Falling demand for COVID-19 related products was also offset by membership growth in its healthcare benefits segment, which offers various insurance products and services. The segment saw a 12.8% rise in revenue in the quarter.Morningstar analyst Julie Utterback said CVS turned in a ‘stellar’ quarterly performance which allowed the management to increase its bottom-line outlook slightly for the full year and is pushing shares up.On an adjusted basis, CVS earned $2.22 per share, compared with estimates of $2.15, while first-quarter revenue of $76.82 billion surpassed estimates of $75.4 billion.The company now expects 2022 full-year adjusted profit to be between $8.20 and $8.40 per share, higher than its prior guidance of $8.10 and $8.30 per share. More

LONDON (Reuters) -British consumers increased borrowing by the most in three years over February and March, according to data that would typically be a sign of solid demand but might now reflect how the cost-of-living squeeze is forcing some households deeper into debt.The Bank of England said lending to consumers rose by 1.3 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) in net terms in March. That was as expected in a Reuters poll of economists following a nearly 1.6 billion-pound increase in February.It marked the highest borrowing over a two-month period since early 2019.Credit card lending accounted for more than half of the increase in March, which was before a sharp rise in energy costs and an increase in taxes in April.The BoE is watching for signs of how the jump in inflation is affecting the economy as it considers how much further it needs to raise interest rates. The central bank is expected to increase its Bank Rate to 1.0% from 0.75% on Thursday.Paul Dales, an economist with Capital Economics, said the rise in consumer borrowing suggested that a recent plunge in consumer confidence and the inflation-adjusted fall in incomes had not caused consumer spending to collapse.But the Money Advice Trust, a charity, said the recent increases in credit card lending could be a sign of mounting pressure on household budgets rather than a sign of a strong economy.Earlier on Wednesday the British Retail Consortium said shop prices in Britain surged last month at the fastest rate in more than a decade and worse is to come.The BoE’s money supply data showed no sign that better-off households who accumulated savings during the pandemic were spending them – something many economists say will be needed to avert recession.”Households’ continued unwillingness to touch the savings they accumulated during the pandemic suggests that real expenditure is set to fall in Q2 in response to the squeeze on disposable incomes,” said Samuel Tombs, economist from consultancy Pantheon Macroeconomics.The BoE reported 7.0 billion pounds of net mortgage lending, up from 4.6 billion pounds in February, and 70,961 mortgage approvals, down slightly from the previous month but still well above the pre-pandemic norm.Britain’s housing market retained much of its momentum in the first months of 2022, despite the phasing out of temporary tax breaks on property purchases in the second half of 2021.($1 = 0.7988 pounds) More

The remarks came after a top decision-making body of the ruling Communist Party last week also vowed to support the economy.”(We shall) waste no time planning incremental policy tools to support steady economic growth, stabilise employment and prices … to provide a fair monetary and financial environment,” the People’s Bank of China said in a statement on Wednesday.It did not detail what measures it could take.Financing institutions should aim to meet the needs of the real economy, the PBOC said, such as boosting financing for small firms with lower costs, helping import and export firms, as well as the service sector and aviation companies which have been badly hit by the pandemic.The bank also called for “stable and orderly” growth in financing the real estate sector, which has experienced a prolonged slowdown in recent months.Economists say Beijing’s target for economic growth of about 5.5% this year will be hard to achieve without significant stimulus, as lockdowns and other tough curbs to battle the pandemic cause havoc in supply chains.In a separate statement, the PBOC said it had allocated an additional 100 billion yuan ($15.13 billion) worth of loans dedicated to coal production and storage, part of Beijing’s efforts to boost energy security and stabilise supply chains.The funding is on top of a 200 billion yuan loan the government allotted in late 2021 for the coal industry including projects such as smart coal mining.($1 = 6.6080 Chinese yuan renminbi) More

Operating profit rose to 1.25 billion Swedish crowns ($126.7 million) from a year-earlier 1.03 billion. Four analysts polled by Refinitiv had on average forecast a 1.25 billion crown profit.CEO Magnus Ahlqvist said in a statement the group had passed on higher wage costs to customers in the quarter and expected to be able keep maintaining that balance. Higher COVID-related sickness costs and spending related to labour shortages weighed on results while a pick-up in demand for airport security on the back of a recovery in travelling from the nadir hit during the pandemic gave a boost.Sales at the Security Services Europe division grew 8% before acquisitions, while the North America unit experienced a 2% decline due to previously announced contract terminations and reduced COVID-related extra sales.Securitas said in December it had agreed to buy U.S. rival Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE:SWK)’s electronic security solutions business for $3.2 billion in its biggest acquisition to date.It said on Wednesday it still had the ambition to close the deal, which requires regulatory approval, towards the end of the second quarter.Securitas in April pulled back an application for EU approval. A company spokesperson said this week the retraction was due to EU authorities needing more time to review the deal and that Securitas aimed to refile the application as soon as possible. Shares in the world’s biggest security services group were up 2.5% at 1134 GMT. ($1 = 9.8646 Swedish crowns) More

The Reserve Bank of India announced a surprise 40 basis point interest rate increase on Wednesday, the first hike in nearly four years, in response to alarm over the surge in global inflation triggered by the Ukraine war.The RBI raised its benchmark repo rate to 4.4 per cent, up from a record low of 4 per cent left in place since rates were cut at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in May 2020. The move is the latest example of how the conflict in Europe is pushing central bankers in developing countries to raise rates to try to contain an upward spiral in prices for essential commodities like food and fuel. Policymakers in India, the world’s fastest-growing large economy, have been keeping rates on hold to protect the country’s economic recovery from the pandemic. But Governor Shaktikanta Das said rising prices of commodities, including crude and edible oils, both of which India imports in large quantities, led policymakers to make the first increase in borrowing costs since 2018. “Persistent and spreading inflationary pressures are becoming more acute with every passing day,” Das said in a televised address after the unscheduled monetary policy meeting. Global food prices have risen to record heights since the outbreak of the conflict.The move rattled financial markets, with the benchmark Sensex equity index falling more than 2 per cent on Wednesday. India’s 10-year government bonds fell 1.8 per cent, according to Bloomberg.“We did expect the RBI to start doing things . . . but it’s quite surprising, the magnitude as well as the timing,” said Shumita Deveshwar, a senior director at research firm TS Lombard, arguing that the RBI should have acted sooner. Inflation has long proved politically sensitive in India, a country of 1.4bn people, with analysts arguing that elections have been won and lost on the back of high prices for onions and other staples. “The fact that they’ve been so relaxed about [inflation] has been surprising,” Deveshwar said. “We have seen this in the past: once the inflationary pressures start to build up, it’s very hard to cap them.”India’s consumer inflation index jumped to 6.95 per cent in March from a year earlier, well above the 6 per cent upper limit of the RBI’s target inflation band. Das said he also expected April’s figure to be “elevated”.The RBI held its regular monetary policy meeting last month, at which it decided to hold rates but signalled that it would wind down its “accommodative” stance.The announcement came ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s own policy statement due on Wednesday, at which the Fed is expected to raise its benchmark rate by half a percentage point.The central bank has typically raised rates by 25 basis point increments. Wednesday’s 40 basis point increase was the largest since 2011.“My personal reaction is that this sort of a sudden rate hike without an advance warning does not speak well of the Reserve Bank of India,” India’s former chief statistician Pronab Sen said.Sen added that a 40 basis point increase would leave investors wondering if more rate rises were coming: “The level of uncertainty will go up, and that’s never good for markets.”Concerns about global inflation have triggered heavy selling of Indian equity and debt by foreign investors, with net foreign portfolio outflows every month since October. More

Eurozone retail sales fell more than expected in March, compounding fears that surging inflation and worries about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have cancelled out the boost to consumer spending delivered by the lifting of pandemic restrictions.The disappointing data added to concerns that the eurozone risks sliding into stagflation — stagnant growth and high inflation — after figures released on Friday showed the bloc had weaker growth in the first quarter and higher price increases in April than expected.The 0.4 per cent drop in March retail spending from the previous month, which Eurostat adjusted for price, calendar and seasonal effects, was below the 0.1 per cent decline expected by economists, according to a Reuters poll. It reversed a rise of 0.4 per cent in February.“March’s retail sales data are a clear signal that higher inflation is dampening spending growth,” said Melanie Debono, senior economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, adding that eurozone retail sales fell 0.8 per cent in the first quarter, reversing a 0.5 per cent rise in the fourth quarter of last year.The biggest fall was in Spain, where sales fell 4 per cent in March, while France and Germany also suffered declines. There were strong increases in many eastern European and Baltic countries, such as an 11.4 per cent rise in Slovenia and 7.3 per cent jump in Hungary. Italy will publish its latest retail sales data on Friday.Sales of food, drinks and tobacco rose in March, but this was offset by lower sales of automotive fuel, mail order and internet sales and other non-food products.Many EU countries significantly eased their Covid-19 restrictions in March, such as the requirement to wear a mask or to show a vaccine pass to enter indoor spaces, a move that was expected to boost consumer spending.A survey of purchasing managers by S&P Global found eurozone services sector activity accelerated in April. But Chris Williamson, an economist at S&P Global, said it was “unclear as to whether the service sector can sustain its current growth once the initial rebound from the reopening of the economy fades, especially given the soaring cost of living”.The recent surge in energy and food prices is expected to erode the purchasing power of households, especially as wages in the bloc have not risen in line with inflation, which hit a new eurozone record of 7.5 per cent in April.Consumer sentiment has been hit since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. The European Commission’s index of EU consumer confidence fell to a two-year low in April, when fewer people said they intended to make big purchases. Consumers are being partially shielded from the impact of higher energy prices after governments, such as those in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, announced more than €80bn of measures to cut taxes or to fund rebates on fuel, electricity or natural gas.But economists worry that an escalation of western sanctions on Moscow could cause energy shortages for industry and send prices even higher, eroding household income and further denting consumer and business confidence. Russia last week cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria and on Wednesday the EU announced plans for a phased-in ban on imports of Russian oil as part of the bloc’s sixth package of sanctions against Moscow. More