Investors were recently served up two fairly unflattering UK data points – October retail sales, which came in lower than expected, and public borrowing, which came in higher than expected.

After three months of rises, retail sales fell 0.7% by volume in October due to a combination of consumers holding back on spending ahead of the Budget and milder-than-usual weather which reduced purchases of winter clothing.

While the public borrowing figure also pre-dated the Budget, at £17.4 billion it was significantly higher than expected and the largest October spend since 2020 when millions of workers had their wages subsidised during the pandemic.

A large part of the rise was due to the decision to increase public-sector pay to avert strikes, but higher interest costs were also a factor which raises the question of whether the moves in the Budget will be enough to balance the books.

Market sentiment was further dampened this week, not by any macro data but by a tweet from Donald Trump proposing aggressive trade tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico from day one of his presidency, which knocked stocks across a wide range of industries dependent on exports.

As Shares went to press investors were bracing for a deluge of US data including third-quarter GDP, core consumer prices, personal income and spending and house prices, all of which will feed into the Federal Reserve’s thinking on interest rates ahead of its next meeting in December, where the odds of a cut now look a lot less promising than they did just a few weeks ago. 

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