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Biggest rise in retail sales since early 2018 – live updates – The Telegraph, Telegraph.co.uk

Biggest rise in retail sales since early 2018 – live updates – The Telegraph, Telegraph.co.uk

G ood morning. European shares have made a fairly tepid open today, as companies warn on the looming hit from coronavirus even as China reported a sharp fall in new case reports.

5 things to start your day

1) Airbus is shedding almost one in 19 staff in the UK working in its defense and space arm after poor sales. The cuts are part of wider restructuring of the pan-European company badly performing unit, with 2, 500 jobs going worldwide by the end of next year.

2) Be sociable: it makes us all richer : When times are good, people seek more than mere economic fulfilment – it is only when times are tough that the economy takes center stage. So how are our social lives? What is the state of British society? The boffins at the Office for National Statistics are keen to find out.

3) Shareholder revolts on the rise as bosses fail to heed warnings on pay : A total of resolutions tabled on pay by the (largest businesses listed on the London Stock Exchange received at least pc dissenting votes at shareholder meetings last year.

4) Liberty Steel plans € 2bn investment spree as it goes green : The first plants to benefit from the – year spending spree will be the seven spread across Europe that Liberty acquired in a £ m purchase from ArcelorMittal last year. The plans were revealed in an internal email to staff in which Mr Gupta acknowledged tough market conditions.

5) Qatar has tightened its grip on the owner of British Airways , spending more than £ 728 m on new shares. State-owned Qatar Airways now owns a quarter of IAG, the FTSE 350 airlines group that also includes Iberia and Vueling.

What happened overnight

A sian stocks eased and currency markets were skittish on Thursday, as virus cases rose in South Korea and Japan even as China added more stimulus with a rate cut to support its economy.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.6pc, led by falls of 0.8pc in Hong Kong and Seoul.

E-mini futures for the S&P 728 traded 0.2pc softer while bonds firmed slightly and the US dollar rose.

China announced a cut to interest rates in a bid to stimulate its economy after the damaging impact of the coronavirus. The one-year loan prime rate was lowered to 4. (pc from 4.) pc, the People’s Bank of China said. The five-year LPR – on which many lenders base their mortgage rates – was also lowered to 4. 100 pc from 4.8pc.

On the back of the stimulus, China’s Shanghai Composite index was up 0.3pc and Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 450 index rose 0.9pc, largely helped by a cheaper yen as the dollar strengthened against other major currencies. However, Hong Kong fell 0.6pc and Seoul was down 0.7pc. Taipei shed 0.2pc, Singapore was down 0.5pc, Sydney was up slightly by 0.5pc.

Coming up today

After jumping in the wake of December’s election results, shares in Lloyds Banking Group have resumed a downward slide, following a bumpy 2019. An easing of political tensions should offer the group some relief, so investors will be looking for signs that borrowing has picked up again in the past couple of months.

“Given the low expectations for 2019 we think investors will be paying more attention to management’s comments about the year ahead, ”said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Nicholas Hyett.

Indeed, the future might well be brighter: Barclays analysts note that with PPI behind it, Lloyds could be in a strong position to deliver capital returns from next year.

Interim results: Hays, McBride

Full-year: Lloyds Banking Group, Rathbone Brothers, Spectris

Preliminary: Anglo American, BAE Systems, Kaz Minerals, Moneysupermarket.com, Smith & Nephew

Trading statement: Aveva

Economics: Retail sales, CBI industrial trends (UK), consumer confidence (eurozone), jobless claims (US)

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