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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Graeme Wearden

FTSE 100 index hits record high; CMA deals blow to Microsoft’s Activision takeover – business live

The skyline of the City of London financial district
The skyline of the City of London financial district Photograph: Jonathan Herbert I JH Images/Getty Images

Closing post

The FTSE 100 has dipped back from this morning’s record high, to just below the 7,900 point mark.

So it’s time to wrap up – here are today’s main stories so far:

UK experiences largest loss of purchasing power since mid-1970s

The UK economy has suffered the biggest loss of purchasing power since the 1970s oil crisis, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked a surge in energy prices.

That’s according to new analysis from the Office for National Statistics today. It explains that higher energy and commodity prices on the UK economy has recently reduced the purchasing power of the UK, as the country is a net energy importer.

The report shows that the UK’s real domestic income shrank by 0.2% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2022, even though real GDP expanded by 1.9%.

The ONS says…

….which shows the UK experienced a negative terms-of-trade effect in response to the recent energy price shock. That is, there was a decline in how much a unit of UK GDP can purchase on global markets.

The UK wasn’t the only country suffering, as the ONS points out:

European countries have experienced a negative purchasing power effect as net energy importers; Italy, Germany, and Japan experienced a larger negative terms-of-trade effect than the UK in the year to Quarter 3 2022.

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