26 / 40
Thequarterly report
26
|
THE INVESTOR
Global stocks reflected shifting expectations for
the US economy, UK politics, interest rates and
eurozone growth, says CIO Chris Ralph
THE INVESTOR CENTRE
Mixedmessages
F
or those investors who like to focus on
politics and geography, the second
quarter o ered several signi cant
political and economic shifts.
The quarter opened just three days
afterTheresa May triggeredArticle 50 of theTreaty
on European Union.Three weeks later an apparently
unassailable prime minister called a general election.
So began a rapid downhill journey that saw her party
lose its majority. Beyond politics, the UKmore
broadly was bu eted by a series of terror attacks and
by the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
Economic headwinds were also apparent: UK
rst quarter growth was 0.2%, the lowest of all 28
EUmember states.
1
Jobs and manufacturing
Chris Ralph
Chief Investment O cer,St.James’s Place
The FTSE 250
The FTSE 100
rose by
2.7
%
rose by less than
0.4
%
Nikkei 225
S&P 500
Eurofirst 300
rose by
5
%
rose by
2.7
%
rose by
1.1
%
numbers provided continued encouragement,
however, and the more domestically oriented FTSE
250 rose 2.7%. But ONS gures showed that
in ation reached 2.9% by quarter-end, while the
more dominant FTSE 100 rose by less than 0.4%.
Unfortunately for workers, wages barely even
gave chase to in ation, falling to their lowest level in
real terms for three years – the current decade is set
to be the worst for UK real wage growth since the
NapoleonicWars, according to the Institute for
Fiscal Studies.The household savings rate slipped to
a 50-year low.
2
The Bank of England’s Monetary
Policy Committee o ered con icting signals of the
rates outlook, but ended the quarter sounding
increasingly hawkish.
End of Q2 2017