Good morning from London where the FTSE 100 is up in early trading, and its NatWest Group PLC (LSE:NWG) that’s the biggest gainer so far up around 2% to continue the share price recovery that started at the beginning of the month. The bank is hoping to move on from a very public conflict with political Nigel Farage over ex-CEO Alison Rose.
Staying on the high street and the ONS has said this morning that retail sales have hit their lowest level since the February 2021 Covid lockdown. Retail sales fell by 0.3% in October, following a fall of 1.1% in September, and analysts are saying that Christmas will be the real test of consumer sentiment – not least because October’s grim weather likely kept people out of the shops.
And there were some more clues about the state of the UK economy from Nationwide Building Society this morning, who say mortgage arrears are up – albeit only slightly. 0.38% per cent of its residential mortgages were behind on repayments by more than three months at the end of September, compared with 0.32% at the start of April.
And Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is looking to save us all some money on suspension and bodywork repairs, earmarking £8.3bln saved from HS2 to help councils sort out the potholes.
And finally some more positive news out of the UK’s world class biotech sector – Arecor Therapeutics PLC (AIM:AREC) has announced the first commercial sale of a product incorporates its proprietary Arestat technology, and you can hear more about that later this morning when I speak to their CEO Sarah Howell. Have a great end to the week
