Closing summary: Pound falls as the dollar moves to the tune of Trump's tariffs
The pound has fallen by 1% against the US dollar to below $1.24, its lowest since April.
Sterling was not helped by weak factory data, which suggests that the UK economy may have some way to go before it picks up the growth momentum for which the Labour government is aiming.
But as ever with currency movements, there are two sides: on the other, there is the rise in the value of the US dollar as investors position for the second Trump administration. The dollar index against a trade-weighted basket of currencies has risen as high as 108.9 – a 0.4% increase over the course of the day. The dollar is up by 0.5% against the euro.
Donald Trump’s policy programme, such as it is, is expected to include deregulation and lower taxes for businesses, which could give a boost to growth.
Tariffs are also an important part of the picture: tariffs usually act to push up the currency of the country imposing them, but they are also a crucial factor in the judgment of some economists that Trump’s policies could harm growth over the medium term.
Cullen Hendrix, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, uses the example of musical instruments to illustrate the possible effects of tariffs:
If caught up in Trump’s promised tariffs, the musical instrument trade would be one illustration of how the Trump’s trade measures will affect Americans’ lives by raising prices and reducing supply.
And like other regressive aspects of Trump’s proposed tariffs, the hardest hit segment of the market will be the lower income households and school music programs that need a reliable supply of relatively inexpensive instruments.
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Tesla narrowly retains electric sales crown, but BYD overtakes it on production
Tesla sold 1.79m cars in 2024, narrowly retaining its position as the world’s largest maker of electric cars despite a stiff challenge from China’s BYD.
Elon Musk’s car company delivered 1.79m cars during 2024, it said on Thursday. That was the first annual decline in delivery volumes in the company’s history.
Tesla’s sales stayed marginally ahead of BYD, which delivered 1.76m.
However, BYD actually overtook Tesla in terms of the number of battery electric cars produced, even if did not quite sell all of them. Tesla made 1.77m against BYD’s 1.78m.
