Economy

The Lloyds (LON:LLOY) Bank Business Barometer measure of confidence among companies fell by 2 points to 39%, still above its long-run average of 29%.Hann-Ju Ho, senior economist at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, said the fall extended a drift down since the summer.”The key difference in this month’s results is that the fall in confidence is driven by firms’ own trading prospects,” he said. “There was, however, more positivity regarding the wider economy and, going into 2025, this offers some hope if companies continue to feel confident about the economy.” Britain’s economy contracted in September and October – the first consecutive monthly falls in output since the COVID-19 pandemic – as employers worried about the new government’s first budget which was announced on Oct. 30.The Bank of England last week forecast zero growth in gross domestic product in the final quarter of 2024 but it kept interest rates on hold as it awaited more clarity on the impact on inflation from the budget’s tax increases for employers.Lloyds’ gauge of price intentions increased slightly in December and remained well above the long-run average.A separate survey suggested the labour market was recovering some of its momentum in the run-up to the Christmas holidays.Online jobs website Adzuna said its measure of growth in vacancies rose by the most in 2024 so far in November, up by 2.3% from October, driven in part by the logistics sector.Average salaries advertised on Adzuna last month rose by 6.5% from a year earlier, the biggest increase since April 2021.Official data last week showed unexpectedly fast pay growth across the economy of 5.2%, well above the rate of around 3% which the BoE views as consistent with stable inflation. However, Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, said employment trends were soon likely to reflect the impact of the budget as well as the slowdown in the economy.”Right now we are seeing a very competitive hiring landscape,” Hunter said. “Yet we expect that the wider macroeconomic environment may begin to impact hiring figures early next year.” More

Miller, wife of Trump’s designated homeland security adviser Stephen Miller, will join Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an informal advisory body that Trump has said will enable his administration to “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.””Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency,” Trump posted in a message on his social media platform Truth Social.Musk and Ramaswamy recently revealed plans to wipe out scores of federal regulations crafted by what they say is an anti-democratic, unaccountable bureaucracy, but have yet to announce members of the DOGE team. Musk has said he wants to slash the number of federal agencies from over 400 to 99.Katie Miller had served in the first Trump adminstration as deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and as press secretary for former Vice President Mike Pence.She is currently a spokesperson for the transition team for Trump’s designated Health and Human Services secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr. More

By Arathy SomasekharHOUSTON (Reuters) – Oil prices settled little changed on Friday as markets weighed Chinese demand and interest rate-cut expectations after data showed cooling U.S. inflation. Brent crude futures closed up 6 cents, or 0.08%, at $72.94 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 8 cents, or 0.12%, at $69.46 per barrel. Both benchmarks ended the week down about 2.5%. The U.S. dollar retreated from a two-year high, but was heading for a third consecutive week of gains, after data showed cooling U.S. inflation two days after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates but trimmed its outlook for rate cuts next year.A weaker dollar makes oil cheaper for holders of other currencies, while rate cuts could boost oil demand.Inflation slowed in November, pushing Wall Street’s main indexes higher in volatile trading. “The fears over the Fed abandoning support for the market with its interest rate schemes have gone out the window,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital in New York.”There were concerns around the market about the demand outlook, especially as it relates to China, and then if we were going to lose the monetary support from the Fed, it was sort of a one-two punch,” Kilduff added. Chinese state-owned refiner Sinopec (OTC:SHIIY) said in its annual energy outlook on Thursday that China’s oil consumption would peak by 2027, as demand for diesel and gasoline weakens. OPEC+ needed supply discipline to perk up prices and soothe jittery market nerves over continuous revisions of its demand outlook, said Emril Jamil, senior research specialist at LSEG. OPEC+, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied producers, recently cut its growth forecast for 2024 global oil demand for a fifth straight month. JPMorgan sees the oil market moving from balance in 2024 to a surplus of 1.2 million barrels per day in 2025, as the bank forecasts non-OPEC+ supply increasing by 1.8 million barrels per day in 2025 and OPEC output remaining at current levels. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said the European Union may face tariffs if the bloc does not cut its growing deficit with the U.S. by making large oil and gas trades with the world’s largest economy.In a move that could pare supply, G7 countries are considering ways to tighten the price cap on Russian oil, such as with an outright ban or by lowering the price threshold, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. Russia has circumvented the $60 per barrel cap imposed in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine through the use of its “shadow fleet” of ships, which the EU and Britain have targeted with further sanctions in recent days.Money managers raised their net long U.S. crude futures and options positions in the week to Dec. 17, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said on Friday. More

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The alleged misconduct reported by the whistleblower related to several employees who worked in the company’s international e-commerce logistics parcels business, the company said in a statement, without giving further details.It said CEO Vincent Phang, along with the chief of the company’s international business unit, Li Yu, and Chief Financial Officer Vincent Yik had been dismissed after the company found they had been “negligent” in handling the case and misrepresented it before an audit committee.The company said it planned to announce a new CEO in due course. More

$75 per monthComplete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders. Pay a year upfront and save 20%.What’s included Global news & analysisExpert opinionFT App on Android & iOSFT Edit appFirstFT: the day’s biggest stories20+ curated newslettersFollow topics & set alerts with myFTFT Videos & Podcasts20 monthly gift articles to shareLex: FT’s flagship investment column15+ Premium newsletters by leading expertsFT Digital Edition: our digitised print edition More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President-elect Donald Trump said on Sunday that Stephen Miran, a Treasury Department adviser in his first administration, would be the chair of his Council of Economic Advisers.The council advises the president on economic policy and is composed of three members, including the chair. The council assists in the preparation of an annual report that gives an overview of the country’s economy, reviews federal policies and programs and makes economic policy recommendations.Earlier this year, Miran and economist Nouriel Roubini authored a hedge fund study that said the U.S. Treasury last year effectively provided economic stimulus by moderating long-dated bond sales.The study echoed suggestions by Republican lawmakers that the Treasury deliberately increased issuance of short-term Treasury bills to give the economy a “sugar high” ahead of the November elections. The Treasury denied any such strategy.Miran, a senior strategist at Hudson (NYSE:HUD) Bay Capital, has also argued that fears over trade tariffs that Trump has threatened to impose after he takes office next month are overblown. Trade and economic experts have said such duties would raise prices and would effectively be a new tax on consumers.Last month, Trump tapped Kevin Hassett, who was a key economic adviser in his first term, to chair his National Economic Council, which helps set domestic and international economic policy.Hudson Bay Capital took a position in Trump’s social media firm Trump Media & Technology in the first quarter of this year. More

NEW YORK (Reuters) -With December so far delivering Scrooge-like returns in an otherwise stellar year for U.S. stocks, investors hope the tail end of 2024 offers some holiday cheer, but warn of potential headwinds.The benchmark S&P 500 is up more than 24% for 2024, even after a major stumble this week, and Wall Street has historically often enjoyed a strong annual close. Since 1969, the last five trading days of the year combined with the first two of the following year have yielded an average S&P 500 gain of 1.3%, a period known as the “Santa Claus Rally,” according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac.But this year, there are signs Santa Claus may disappoint. The S&P 500 on Wednesday suffered its biggest one-day drop since August after the Federal Reserve caught investors off guard by signaling fewer-than-expected interest rate cuts in 2025. The market also looks less healthy beneath the surface: Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors are in negative territory for December, while the equal-weight S&P 500, a proxy for the average index stock, is down 7%. Another worry for stocks as the year winds down is rising Treasury yields, said Matt Maley, chief market strategist at asset manager Miller Tabak. Benchmark 10-year yields hit 4.55% on Thursday following the Fed meeting, their highest level in over six months. With the S&P 500 trading at 21.6 times forward earnings estimates, well above its 15.8 historical average, according to LSEG Datastream, that jump in yields will put more pressure on equity valuations. “We’re ending the year with people finally facing the reality that the stock market is extremely expensive and the Fed is not going to be as accommodative as they had been thinking,” Maley said. Still, this week’s pullback could be positive because it eliminated some of the frothy sentiment in equities, “setting up the market for a rebound,” said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services. “If there is further follow through on the downside, that could be a little bit more dangerous to the bullish trend.”The Santa Claus period, when combined with the following first five trading days of January and the performance of January overall, is a harbinger for the year: when those three indicators are positive, the year has ended higher more than 90% of the time in the past 50 years, according to the Almanac.But that seasonal strength may have come early this year, given the S&P 500 posted a blockbuster 5.7% return in November driven by Donald Trump’s Nov. 5 presidential election victory, Carlson said.”It’s been a strong year for the market, and you can make an argument that we kind of got the year-end rally in November instead of December,” Carlson said.Signs that the market rally is increasingly narrow could also spoil any holiday cheer. A number of megacap stocks have performed well in December, including Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), which are up 22% and more than 13% respectively so far this month. Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) shares are up 36% for December after the company this month predicted booming demand for its custom artificial intelligence chips, pushing its market value over $1 trillion.But such gains are increasingly sparse. The number of S&P 500 components that declined outpaced those that advanced for 13 straight sessions as of Wednesday, the longest such losing streak in LSEG data that stretches back to 2012.In another worrisome sign, the percentage of S&P 500 stocks trading above their 200-day moving averages declined to 56% as of Wednesday, a low for the year, according to Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist for LPL Financial (NASDAQ:LPLA).”We recommend waiting for support to be established and for momentum to improve before stepping up to buy the dip,” Turnquist said in a note following Wednesday’s selloff. More