30 June 2022
- Worries about a global downturn rattle investors.
- Brent crude slips below $116, but still up 51% year to date.
- Consumer spending power shows signs of fresh erosion.
- House builders slide as house price rises ease off.
Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown
‘’A sense of foreboding is again gripping financial markets, with anxiety rising that by attacking inflation, central banks risk severely weakening economies. Following fresh falls on Wall Street, Asian markets retreated and European indices also opened lower. The FTSE 100 slid 1.8% with risers very few and far between. As worries about a global downturn have increased, oil has dipped amid expectations of lower demand, with Brent Crude falling slightly to below $116 a barrel. But it’s still at an eye-watering level, up 51% since the start of the year due to intense supply pressures. OPEC countries are currently meeting to decide the way forward for production targets, but early indications are that the prospects that they’ll pump significantly more oil going forward are low.