Well, there was certainly a big dollop of of feelgood Friday around in the City today. Perhaps it is the very long overdue arrival of proper spring weather.
Growth in February may only have been 0.1% but that did not stop the equity markets gambolling around like new-born lambs in a field.
The FTSE 100 finally got its act together to make that push through the 8000 mark and it seems only a matter of time before new all-time highs are set.
Even Grant Fitzner, the sobersides head of economics at the Office for National Statistics, was indulging in wild talk of “moderate optimism” about the outlook for growth over the next few months. Steady there, Grant.
Let’s hope, like the Spring sunshine, this is not all brought to an end by a return of chillier winds. There is a long way to go before economic summer can be declared, and this week has been a reminder of how fickle markets can be.
It is just two days since the Fed dismayed the doves with a worse than expected CPI inflation figures that sent the Dow into a tailspin and economists scrambling back to their desktop abacuses to recalibrate their interest rate forecasts.
Who knows what next week will bring? It is a big one for UK economics with inflation, jobs and retail data to be published between Tuesday and Friday. Consumers are starting to get slightly better off but until interest rates start to fall decisively — probably towards the end of the year and into 2025 — they will remain grumpy.
In London at least, my conversations suggests it is still hard pounding out there, although at least there is some stability at last after the political and economic roller-coaster of the last few years.
We may be out of recession but any hint of boom times of the like we have not enjoyed since before the financial crash? Well, that still feels a long way off.
