Market Summary Week Ending 12/02/2023

It was announced on Friday that the UK narrowly avoided creeping into a recession, with data for the period for October to December 2022 showing that the UK registered zero growth. Whilst no economic growth is not desirable, avoiding recession is a welcome reprieve for UK investors given continued fears of the UK being the only major economy to ‘shrink’ in 2023, as reported by the IMF back in January.

UK investors will be closely monitoring the Consumer Price Index announcement on Wednesday (15 February) to see if inflation has reached its peak. There is optimism about further decreases in the rate of inflation following a downward trend in December and January.

Across the week, the FTSE 100 increased by 0.58% to continue the positive start to 2023, which has seen an overall rise of 5.84% since the beginning of the year.

In the US all three of the major markets suffering their first weekly losses of 2023, after Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, stated that there is still a long way to go in the fight to bring inflation down to the desired target of 2%. He noted that interest rates could potentially increase more than markets anticipate if inflation numbers do not abate – reversing some of the market optimism which has buoyed the US market since the start of the year.

As a result of these comments and deflated investor confidence, the Dow ended the week down 0.17%, the S&P 500 fell 1.11%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slid 2.41%, marking their biggest weekly losses since December.

US investors eyes will be on the monthly Consumer Price Index announcement due on Tuesday (14 February) to assess the impact of the measures implemented by the Federal Reserve.

Please note for this weekly summary, we focus on the major indices within the financial markets such as the FTSE 100 (UK) and the Dow Jones and NASDAQ (US) to provide a factual account of what has happened within a certain index. Performance figures quoted are factual from the previous week’s trading and this summary is for commentary purposes only. 

The performance of these indices is not a representation of an individual fund or portfolio. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. The value of your investment can go down as well as up. You could get back less than you originally invested.