Tuesday, 19th July: UK inflation crept up in June, albeit in data collected before the EU referendum, as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) today announced that consumer prices rose 0.5% in June compared to a year earlier. This is up from a 0.3% rise in May. A rise in airfares, coinciding with an increase in travel to France for Euro 2016 has been one of the contributors to the inflation increase, whilst furniture and furnishings have fallen in price.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has today reduced their global growth forecasts, claiming the UK’s decision to leave the EU has “thrown a spanner in the works”. Global growth was expected to grow at 3.2% in 2016 but this has been retracted slightly to 3.1%; 2017’s growth forecast has been cut 100bps to 3.4%. However, it is the UK itself who has had growth forecasts slashed: its 2017 growth forecast has been cut from 2.2% to 1.3%, whilst 2016 growth is forecast at 1.7% rather than 1.9%. It seems growth looked good prior to the “brexit”, with the IMF looking to upgrade their global growth projection slightly, according to a statement released by an IMF Economic Counsellor and Director of Research Department.
In the US Netflix shares have fallen after the video streaming service added fewer subscribers than expected – 1.68milliong users signed up in the three months to June, significantly lower than the 2.5m forecast. There is set to be a price increase to the subscription service by the end of the year but the latest fall in new subscribers, their weakest subscriber numbers in three years, sent the shares lower by 14%, and means the stock has lost approximately a quarter of its value this year.
Staying in the US, if you are going to plagiarise, maybe don’t do it on the centre stage on the first day of the Republican National Convention. This is what Donald Trump’s wife, Melania (Trump) has been accused of doing as her speech had many similarities to the current President’s wife’s speech from 2008. Of course, Trump himself has defended his wife, describing it as “absolutely incredible”, however some of the speech writing team may want to check the originality of their work…