Wednesday, 15th August: Data on Wednesday revealed the first occurrence in 2018 of an increase in inflation of 2.5 per cent, but also a slower paced movement in house prices, and prices in London fell at their fastest pace since 2009. House prices across the UK rose by 3.0 per cent in June, compared to 3.5 per cent in May, making it the weakest increase since 2013. In London, house prices fell by the largest since September 2009, by 0.7 per cent.
Meanwhile, the relationship between Turkey and the US deteriorated further on Wednesday morning when President Erdogan raised tariffs on; cars to 120 per cent, alcoholic drinks to 140 per cent and leaf tobacco to 60 per cent. The Turkish lira has rebounded c.6 per cent on Wednesday against the dollar after falling close to 40 per cent during the year thus far. The tariff increase came as a response to the US, who are also the fourth largest source of imports to Turkey last year, after they increased tariffs on aluminium and steel imports from Turkey.
The blue-chip index had another difficult day. After starting off in positive territory, it only lasted for a short amount of time before it began to drop again and ended the day to total the third in a row in red. At the top of the index was Admiral Group, trading higher due to positive interim results including a 14% increase in customers during the period. At the other end was the miners and oilers following the currency crisis which shook up crude and commodity prices and offset any gains the FTSE attempted to make.
The FTSE 100 closed 1.49% lower at 7497, placing it back to the same levels in May of this year.