Market Comment – Today’s 175 Point Rise Has No Base

Ongoing strikes inconveniencing all walks of life in the UK have been impactful over the last couple of months.

I see them continuing until the strikers run out of personal funds sufficient to exist when withdrawing their work availability.

Some of the Union members may well pick up support from the hardship funds but they will probably not be receiving weekly cash enough to exist.

The Government has a very hard call to endure – does it kowtow to such strikers and in the process light even brighter the aura of inflation?

The Old Lady Has Slowed Down

The Bank of England, in my view, has played several bad hands over the last year or two.

It took the Ukraine conflict and surging fuel costs to wake it up and jerk itself into action.

That was just so slow, very slow indeed.

We Are Two and a Half Years Into This Inflation

Ask any housewife when she noticed the inflationary costs of her shopping baskets – it had to be way back in the Autumn of 2020.

Even before the Ukraine conflict prices were rising significantly, certainly faster than the officially compiled indices of household costs.

Strikes To Continue

These strikes will, in my view, carry on for quite a while, unless public pressure explodes and starts to crack its whip over members of the British Government (some may like it, but that is another story).

Falling House Prices

Every property owner has seen a substantial rise in values over the last three years, however I am convinced that stiffer mortgage costs will put a severe brake on such rises (if they have not already done so).

Alas the first-time buyers, who have been the biggest contingent of weight in the housing market, are now being denied mortgage facilities as rates have shot up, following the Bank of England’s slow reaction to inflation.

Recession For The Next Eighteen Months

We now expect that the UK will be in recession until well into 2024 – and that our recession is expected to be deeper than others in the world’s largest economies.

Dissemination

After Covid we experienced a massive wave of supply shortages, as well as a distinct lack of full employment.

Shops, restaurants, bars and the like were impacted by higher prices, shortfalls of important goods and products, coupled with ranks of previously furloughed employees being reluctant to return to work.

The ‘Death Towns’

It scares me to look around the West End and the City of London and witness considerably less pedestrian traffic, closed shops, bars and the like.

At times when walking through the streets they have felt like ‘death town’s’.

WFH Has Been a Killer

The ‘work from home’ culture, at first encouraged by the Covid pressures, should have been reversed or strongly discouraged as the pandemic ended.

Civil servants working from home should have been recalled, as too those who previously worked in offices and the like.

Does the Government have the guts to officially sound the recall?

Profits Being Cut Back

As I continue to scour company news each day, I am obviously noting the swell of lower profits being announced, with previous estimates of sales and earnings woefully impacted. This really is not good.

Is there a need for a ‘corporate reset’ to take us back to as base from which the UK can prosper?

Just What is The Market Doing?

As always it gets heated very quickly – but today’s rise on the FTSE 100 to touch 175 points higher at one stage, hitting 7626.40, seems incredible to me.

There has been no good news that I have seen today to cause such an indices scramble.

We all know that markets can get scary at times – but 175 points up is nonsense.

I still see the market easing back again, with at least a fallback to 7400, perhaps even lower.

Do not get sucked into this New Year Rally – it has no base.

Oh, and by the way may I wish all of my readers a very happy, enjoyable, healthy and prosperous 2023.