Closing post
Time to wrap up…
Rachel Reeves could “easily” breach fiscal rules if growth disappoints or rate shocks materialise, the IMF has warned.
While the new Labour government has embarked on a “bold agenda”, the IMF said, delivering it will require overcoming “significant challenges” amid shockwaves from the trade war and the confines of tight fiscal headroom.
The British government could reduce pressure for “overly-frequent changes to fiscal policy” by introducing more headroom, the IMF said in the final version of an annual report on Britain’s economy.
British retail sales rise in June, official figures show
There is some positive news for the retail sector this morning, with official figures showing that monthly sales rose in June by 0.9%. It follows a fall of 2.8% in May.
That was helped by warm weather, with supermarkets reporting better trading and an increase in drink purchases, the Office for National Statistics has said.
NatWest investors given £1.5bn weeks after full privatisation
NatWest will give a further £1.5bn to shareholders only weeks after the UK government sold the final part of its stake in the once bailed-out bank.
The high street lender on Friday announced plans to distribute an interim dividend of 9.5p a share, worth a collective £768m, on top of a fresh £750m share buy-back in the second half of the year.
It came as the bank beat market forecasts with a 4.4% rise in second-quarter profits to just under £1.8bn, thanks in part to higher income linked to its takeover of Sainsbury’s banking business, which it snapped up last year.
US stocks have opened slightly higher, with the blue chip S&P 500 index up 0.14%. The tech heavy Nasdaq index is up by 0.1%.
Intel is one of the worst performers, with its shares down by as much as 9.7% after the chipmaker told investors yesterday that it forecasts steeper losses in the third quarter than Wall Street had expected.
