{"id":18489,"date":"2023-04-21T00:31:04","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T00:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/uk-consumer-confidence-highest\/"},"modified":"2023-04-21T00:34:29","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T00:34:29","slug":"uk-consumer-confidence-highest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/uk-consumer-confidence-highest\/","title":{"rendered":"UK consumer confidence highest since Feb 2022 as ‘green shoots’ emerge: GfK"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Suban Abdulla<\/p>\n

LONDON (Reuters) – British consumers were their most upbeat in more than a year this month, despite the surging cost of living, as they took a more positive view of their finances and the health of the wider economy, market research firm GfK said on Friday.<\/p>\n

GfK’s Consumer Confidence Index rose for the third month in a row to -30 in April, up six points from March and the highest reading since February last year, just before Russia invaded Ukraine and spurred a surge in energy costs in most of Europe.<\/p>\n

April’s reading was also above the -35 reading forecast in a Reuters poll of economists.<\/p>\n

Consumers’ expectations for Britain’s economy in the next 12 months hit a 15-month high and they saw the prospects for their personal finances as the brightest since February 2022. <\/p>\n

While the country’s economy is expected to avoid a recession this year, the broader picture remains weak with double-digit inflation proving harder to tame. <\/p>\n

However, Joe Staton, GfK’s client strategy director, said there had been a “sudden flowering of optimism” among households.<\/p>\n

“The brighter views on what the general economy has in store for us … could even be seen as the proverbial ‘green shoots of recovery’,” Staton said.<\/p>\n

Official data earlier this week showed consumer price inflation fell less than forecast in March to 10.1%, and the cost of food and drinks surged by the most since August 1977.<\/p>\n

Britain’s high inflation rate has caused investors to raise bets that the Bank of England will hike interest rates for the 12th time in a row at its next meeting in May, to help return double-digit inflation to its 2% target. <\/p>\n

There was also an increase in GfK’s sub-index of shoppers’ willingness to make expensive purchases. GfK’s gauge of savings intentions fell marginally but was still positive and nine points higher than the same month last year. <\/p>\n

The survey of 2,000 people was conducted between April 3 and April 13.<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Suban Abdulla; editing by David Milliken)<\/p>\n

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By Suban Abdulla LONDON (Reuters) – British consumers were their most upbeat in more than a year this month, despite the surging cost of living, as they took a more positive view of their finances and the health of the wider economy, market research firm GfK said on Friday. GfK’s Consumer Confidence Index rose for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":18490,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1216],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-18489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-economy","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportEconomy\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3J118-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18491,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18489\/revisions\/18491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}