Evelyn Reynolds

Home improvement retailer Kingfisher became the latest British company to report a negative impact from U.K. Finance Minister Rachel Reeves’ October budget — as she prepares her latest update on the state of the British economy.
Top on the businesses’ list of complaints is higher employment costs after the government pledged in October to increase national insurance contributions from employers and raised the country’s “national living wage” by 6.7% from April 1.
The Confederation of British Industry said Reeves “must inject business with a serious confidence boost” on Wednesday.

Rachel Reeves, UK chancellor of the exchequer, outside 11 Downing Street ahead of presenting her budget to parliament in London, UK, on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. 
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Home improvement retailer Kingfisher became the latest British company to report a negative impact from U.K. Finance Minister Rachel Reeves’ October budget — as she prepares her latest update on the state of the British economy.
In its annual earnings release on Tuesday, Kingfisher, which owns home improvement retailer B&Q, said the government’s policies had “raised costs for retailers and impacted consumer sentiment,” with sales of big-ticket items falling.

It is the latest in a line of British businesses that have criticized Reeves’ bumper tax-rising budget since autumn. The companies will now be keeping a close eye on Reeves’ Spring Statement, when she’s set to update lawmakers on her latest spending and taxation plans at 12:30 p.m. London time Wednesday.
Top on the businesses’ list of complaints is a higher employment cost after the government pledged in October to increase national insurance contributions from employers and raised the country’s “national living wage” by 6.7% from April 1.
On Sunday, Reeves defended the tax rises ahead of the Wednesday statement, telling Sky News the government “took the action that was necessary to ensure our public services and public finances were on a firm footing.”
However, a number of consumer-facing businesses have flagged concerns with the Labour government’s economic policies in their earnings reports this quarter. They include supermarket giant Tesco, which said its higher national insurance contributions could add up to £250 million ($324 million) to annual costs, while the chairman of pub chain JD Wetherspoon, Tim Martin, said the changes will cost every one of his pubs £1,500 per week. 
Regis Schultz, CEO of sportswear retailer JD Sports, said the policies mean it was tempting for businesses to reduce staff numbers and hours, “which will be bad news for the economy.” 

It comes as the U.K. battles economic sluggishness, rising prices and widespread uncertainty as a result of U.S. President Donald Trump’s global trade tariffs.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the country’s independent public finances watchdog, is reportedly expected to downgrade the U.K.’s growth forecasts for 2025 on Wednesday, halving its previous 2% estimate.
AB Foods, which owns budget fashion retailer Primark, blamed the Labour government’s budget as contributing to broader consumer weakness in the country. Finance Director Eoin Tonge told analysts that customers across its brands were cautious, citing “a shock and a fear, that’s driven people to pull in their horns.” That view was shared by clothing retailer Frasers Group, which said it saw weaker consumer confidence around the budget announcement. The company’s Chief Financial Officer Chris Wootton told Reuters the company “felt we’d been kicked in the face.”
The slew of negative corporate commentary is expected to pile pressure on Reeves ahead of her Spring Statement.
The British Retail Consortium has called on the government to “inject confidence into the economy,” warning that April’s rise in tax contributions and the minimum wage will generate £5 billion in additional costs for retailers, giving “many no option but to push prices up.”
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said Reeves “must inject business with a serious confidence boost” on Wednesday.
“As an immediate priority the government should re-commit to not raising the business tax burden further over the course of this Parliament,” Louise Hellem, chief economist of the CBI, said in a statement. “Setting an ambitious goal for R&D spending, making it easier to invest in skills and taking measures to reduce the regulatory burden on business would be encouraging moves that would show the government understood what business needs to see from them.”
Goldman Sachs Chief Equity Strategist Peter Oppenheimer meanwhile told CNBC on Monday that concerns over consumer and business confidence will see Reeves focus on cutting costs rather than raising taxes this week, but said the government’s focus on boosting growth was “a laudable objective, a difficult thing to do.”
CNBC has reached out to the U.K. Treasury for comment.
— CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt contributed to this report. More

The additions included companies that are customers of Intel and Nvidia, and one firm that was the focus of a New York Times investigation last year.The Trump administration on Tuesday added 80 companies and organizations to a list of companies that are barred from buying American technology and other exports because of national security concerns.The move, which targeted primarily Chinese firms, cracks down on companies that have been big buyers of American chips from Nvidia, Intel and AMD. It also closed loopholes that Trump administration officials have long criticized as allowing Chinese firms to continue to advance technologically despite U.S. restrictions.One company added to the list, Nettrix Information Industry, was the focus of a 2024 investigation by The New York Times that showed how some Chinese executives had bypassed U.S. restrictions aimed at cutting China off from advanced chips to make artificial intelligence.Nettrix, one of China’s largest makers of computer servers that are used to produce artificial intelligence, was started by a group of former executives from Sugon, a firm that provided advanced computing to the Chinese military and built a system the government used to surveil persecuted minorities in the western Xinjiang region.In 2019, the United States added Sugon to its “entity list,” restricting exports over national security concerns. The Times investigation found that, six months later, the executives formed Nettrix, using Sugon’s technology and inheriting some of its customers. Times reporters also found that Nettrix’s owners shared a complex in eastern China with Sugon and other related companies.After Sugon was singled out and restricted by the United States, its longtime partners — Nvidia, Intel and Microsoft — quickly formed ties with Nettrix, the investigation found.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The Conference Board’s measure for future expectations tumbled 9.6 points to 65.2, the lowest reading in 12 years.
The board’s monthly confidence index of current conditions slipped to 92.9, a 7.2-point decline and the fourth consecutive monthly contraction.

Shoppers walk near a Nordstrom store at the Westfield UTC shopping center on Jan. 31, 2025 in San Diego, California.
Kevin Carter | Getty Images

Consumer confidence dimmed further in March as the view of future conditions fell to the lowest level in more than a decade, the Conference Board reported Tuesday.
The board’s monthly confidence index of current conditions slipped to 92.9, a 7.2-point decline and the fourth consecutive monthly contraction. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a reading of 93.5.

However, the measure for future expectations told an even darker story, with the index tumbling 9.6 points to 65.2, the lowest reading in 12 years and well below the 80 level that is considered a signal for a recession ahead.
The index measures respondents’ outlook for income, business and job prospects.
“Consumers’ optimism about future income — which had held up quite strongly in the past few months — largely vanished, suggesting worries about the economy and labor market have started to spread into consumers’ assessments of their personal situations,” said Stephanie Guichard, senior economist, global indicators at The Conference Board.
The survey comes amid worries over President Donald Trump’s plans for tariffs on U.S. imports, which has coincided with a volatile stock market and other surveys showing waning sentiment.
The fall in confidence was driven by a decline in those 55 or older but was spread across income groups.

In addition to the general pessimism, the outlook for the stock market slid sharply, with just 37.4% of respondents expecting higher equity prices in the next year. That marked a 10 percentage point drop from February and was the first time the view turned negative since late 2023.
The view on the labor market also weakened, with those expecting more jobs to be available falling to 16.7%, while those expecting fewer jobs rose to 28.5%. The respective February readings were 18.8% and 26.6%.
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Americans are increasingly anxious about their jobs and finances as the Trump administration’s trade policies and government cutbacks stoke concern about the economy.Consumer confidence tumbled this month to its lowest level since January 2021, the Conference Board reported on Tuesday, extending a decline that has been underway since shortly after President Trump was elected last fall. The short-term outlook for “income, business and labor market conditions” fell to its lowest reading in 12 years, the business group reported, signaling consumer angst about a deterioration in economic conditions in the coming year.Economists have warned that Mr. Trump’s plans for sweeping tariffs on the United States’ biggest trading partners could reignite inflation. Whiplash from shifting trade policies, and investors’ concern about a potential slowdown in the American economy, fueled a stock-market sell-off earlier this month. Households are bracing for higher inflation over the next year, according to the survey, with 12-month inflation expectations rising to 6.2 percent, from an outlook of 5.8 percent in February. (Over the most recent 12 months, the inflation rate was 2.8 percent, according to the Consumer Price Index for February.)Consumers are “spooked” by the Trump administration’s trade wars, cuts to the federal government by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and the recent stock market sell-off, said Bill Adams, the chief economist for Comerica Bank.“When people fear for their jobs, they will cut back on discretionary spending on vacations and going out, and delay big purchases like new houses, cars or appliances,” Mr. Adams said. He added that the length of the downturn in consumer sentiment was hard to predict.Stephen Miran, the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, played down the drop in consumer confidence in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday. “Folks often let their political views influence their views of the economy,” he said.The latest Conference Board survey added to growing evidence that uncertainty about tariff policies is making consumers less confident about the economic outlook and more worried about inflation. Data from the University of Michigan released this month showed consumer sentiment plummeting 11 percent from February as Americans of all ages, income groups and political affiliations turned even more downbeat.Some company executives warn of a pullback in consumer spending, too. Delta Air Lines cut its financial forecast for the first three months of the year, citing lower demand for domestic travel, while the chief executive of the clothing retailer Burlington cautioned its investors that tariffs “could hurt discretionary spending.” More

When Starbucks announced last month that it was laying off more than 1,000 corporate employees, it highlighted a disturbing trend for white-collar workers: Over the past few years, they have seen a steeper rise in unemployment than other groups, and slower wage growth.It also added fuel to a debate that has preoccupied economists for much of that time: Are the recent job losses merely a temporary development? Or do they signal something more ominous and irreversible?After sitting below 4 percent for more than two years, the overall unemployment rate has topped that threshold since May.Economists say that the job market remains strong by historical standards and that much of the recent weakening appears connected to the economic impact of the pandemic. Companies hired aggressively amid surging demand, then shifted to layoffs once the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates. Many of these companies have sought to make their operations leaner under pressure from investors.But amid rapid advances in artificial intelligence and President Trump’s targeting of federal agencies, which disproportionately support white-collar jobs, some wonder if a permanent decline for knowledge work has begun.“We’re seeing a meaningful transition in the way work is done in the white-collar world,” said Carl Tannenbaum, the chief economist of Northern Trust. “I tell people a wave is coming.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

A report card from an engineering group found that American roads, ports and other infrastructure got better last year but could be hurt if federal funding is reduced.Increased federal spending in recent years has helped to improve U.S. ports, roads, parks, public transit and levees, according to a report released on Tuesday by the American Society of Civil Engineers.But that progress could stagnate if those investments, some of which were put on hold after President Trump took office in January, aren’t sustained.Overall, the group gave the nation’s infrastructure a C grade, a mediocre rating but the best the country has received since the group’s first report card in 1998. Most infrastructure, including aviation, waterways and schools, earned a C or D grade; ports and rail did better. The group also projected a $3.7 trillion infrastructure funding shortfall over the next decade.“The report card demonstrates the crucial need for the new administration and Congress to continue sustained investment in infrastructure,” Darren Olson, the chairman of the society’s committee on America’s infrastructure, said on a call with reporters. “Better infrastructure is an efficient investment of taxpayer dollars that results in a stronger economy and prioritizes American jobs.”The report, which is now released every four years, has long noted that the United States spends too little on infrastructure. But that started to change in 2021, the group said, thanks to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which authorized $1.2 trillion in funding under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. That investment is showing results, with grades having improved since the last report, in 2021, for nearly half the 18 categories that the group tracks.But in January, Mr. Trump froze much of the funding under that law and another aimed at addressing climate change, pending a review by his agencies. That halted a variety of programs, including those intended to help schools, farmers and small businesses.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

President Trump issued an executive order on Monday to crack down on countries that buy Venezuelan oil by imposing tariffs on the goods those nations send into the United States, claiming that Venezuela has “purposefully and deceitfully” sent criminals and murderers into America.In the order, the president said the government of Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan leader, and the Tren de Aragua gang, a transnational criminal organization, posed a threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.On or after April 2, a tariff of 25 percent may be imposed on all goods imported into the United States from any country that imports Venezuelan oil, either directly or indirectly through third parties, the order said.The order said the secretaries of state, Treasury, commerce and homeland security, as well as the trade representative, would determine at their discretion what tariffs to impose. The tariffs would expire one year after the last date the Venezuelan oil was imported, or earlier if Trump officials so chose, it said.This unconventional use of tariffs could further disrupt the global oil trade as buyers of Venezuelan oil seek alternatives. The United States and China have been the top buyers of Venezuelan oil in recent months, according to Rystad Energy, a research and consulting firm. India and Spain also buy a small amount of crude from the South American country.But in the case of China, Venezuela’s oil makes up such a small portion of the country’s imports that the threat of higher tariffs will probably cause China to look elsewhere for oil, said Jorge León, a Rystad Energy analyst.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Chances that the U.S. is heading for a recession are about 43%, according to a Deutsche Bank survey.
That raises more questions about the direction of the U.S. economy.

U.S. dollar banknotes and a label with the word “Recession” are seen in this illustration taken March 19, 2025.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Chances that the U.S. is heading for a recession are close to 50-50, according to a Deutsche Bank survey that raises more questions about the direction of the U.S. economy.
The probability of a downturn in growth over the next 12 months is about 43%, as set by the average view of 400 respondents during the period of March 17-20.

Though unemployment remains low and most data points suggest continuing if not slowing growth, the survey results reinforce the message from sentiment surveys that consumers and business leaders are increasingly concerned that a slowdown or recession is a growing risk.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell last week acknowledged the worries but said he still sees the economy as “strong overall” featuring “significant progress toward our goals over the past two years.”
Still, Powell and his colleagues at the two-day policy meeting that concluded Wednesday lowered their estimate for gross domestic product this year to just a 1.7% annualized gain. Excluding the Covid-induced retrenchment in 2020, that would be the worst growth rate since 2011.
Additionally, Fed officials raised their outlook for core inflation to 2.8%, well above the central bank’s 2% goal, though they still expect to achieve that level by 2027.

The combination of higher inflation and slower growth raise the specter of stagflation, a phenomenon not experienced since the early 1980s. Few economists see that era replicated in the current environment, though the probability is rising of a policy challenge where the Fed might have to choose between boosting growth and tamping down prices.

Markets have been nervous in recent weeks about the prospects ahead. Bond expert Jeffrey Gundlach at DoubleLine Capital told CNBC a few days ago that he sees the chances of a recession at 50% to 60%.
“The recent equity market correction was punctuated by the ‘uncertainty shock’ of ever-evolving tariff policy, with investors concerned it could morph into a slowdown or even recession,” Morgan Stanley said in a note Monday. “What’s really at the heart of the conundrum, however, is that the U.S. might be at risk for a bout of stagflation, where growth slows and inflation remains sticky.”
Powell, however, doubted that a repeat of the previous bout of stagnation is in the cards. “I wouldn’t say we’re in a situation that’s remotely comparable to that is likely,” he said.
Barclays analysts noted that “market-based measures are consistent with only a modest slowing in the economy,” though the firm expects a growth rate this year of just 0.7%, barely above the recession threshold.
UCLA Anderson, a closely watched and widely cited forecasting center, recently turned heads with its first-ever “recession watch” call for the economy, based largely on concerns over President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Clement Bohr, an economist at the school, wrote that the downturn could come in a year or two though he said one is “entirely avoidable” should Trump scale back his tariff threats.
“This Watch also serves as a warning to the current administration: be careful what you wish for because, if all your wishes come true, you could very well be the author of a deep recession. And it may not simply be a standard recession that is being chaperoned into existence, but a stagflation,” Bohr said.
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