Closing summary: UK vets could face pets price regrets
To get 56,000 people to do anything is impressive. To get them to respond to a consultation by the Competition and Markets Authority is unheard of.
Such is the strength of feeling that Britons have about their pets. (PDSA last year estimated there were 10.6m pet dogs, 10.8m pet cats and 800,000 pet rabbits living in the UK.) And particularly when people think they are being ripped off.
The competition regulator said it was looking at whether it should impose price caps on medicines, abolish dispensing fees, and ban financial incentives for vets to choose certain treatments, including bundling together a package of treatments.
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In other business news from today:
McDonald’s reported a drop in US sales, which it blamed on broader consumer uncertainty amid the turmoil of Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
HSBC chair Mark Tucker will retire before the end of the year.
American carmaker General Motors has said that Donald Trump’s tariffs will cost the company as much as $5bn this year.
British mortgage borrowing rose to the highest in four years in March as buyers rushed to complete purchases before a tax break expired.
The downturn in British manufacturing continued as new export orders fell at the fastest pace in five years amid global uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs, according to a closely followed survey.
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Thank you for following today, and please do join me tomorrow for more of the same (albeit probably with fewer dogs). JJ
Still, Wall Street investors appear to be content for today: shares have risen strongly on the opening bell, driven by tech stocks.
Here are the opening snaps via Reuters:
S&P 500 UP 55.12 POINTS, OR 0.99%, AT 5,624.18
NASDAQ UP 349.31 POINTS, OR 2%, AT 17,795.66
DOW JONES UP 187.11 POINTS, OR 0.46%, AT 40,856.47
Bob Savage, head of markets macro strategy at BNY, an investment bank, said:
The rally back in risk started with the after-trading following Q1 earnings reports from Meta and Microsoft that beat expectations.
