So there we have it. Britain managed to dodge a technical recession last year.
The economy still shrank by 0.5pc in December, but it was enough to steer the UK away from two consecutive quarters of decline.
Gross domestic product (GDP) flatlined in the last three months of 2022, having fallen by 0.3pc in the third quarter of the year, according to the Office for National Statistics.
5 things to start your day
1) Rupert Murdoch to cut 1250 jobs from newspaper empire | Net profits slumped 64pc to $262m as higher costs and lower revenues hit its news division
2) Companies banned from paying hackers after attacks on Royal Mail and Guardian | New sanctions target Russian ransomware gang members
3) HS2 is so expensive because ‘we are more responsible builders than the French’ | HS2 chairman Sir Jon Thompson defends high speed project as ‘not immune’ to soaring costs
4) London economy bounces back fastest in England in blow to Tories’ levelling up agenda | East and West Midlands outputs shrink by 5.7pc compared to capital’s 2.7pc increase
5) Elon Musk poised to reclaim title of world’s richest person | Tesla billionaire within touching distance of LVMH’s Bernauld Arnault
What happened overnight
Asia-Pacific stocks fell on Friday, slumping toward a second weekly loss as investors fretted about the potential for further Federal Reserve tightening and the effect on the US economy.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares sank 0.6pc and was on course for a 1pc weekly decline, after losing 1.2pc in the previous week.
Mainland Chinese blue chips lost 0.4pc and the Hang Seng tumbled 1.2pc. China’s January factory gate prices fell more than economists expected, suggesting that flashes of domestic demand that had stoked consumer prices after the zero-Covid policy ended are not yet strong enough to rekindle upstream sectors.
Australia’s benchmark slid 0.6pc and South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.5pc.
Tokyo shares ended higher despite an overnight rout on Wall Street, with investors cheered by a weaker yen and strong earnings results from some firms.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.4pc to close at 27,670.98, while the broader Topix index added 0.1pc to 1,986.96.
Wall Street stocks closed lower, erasing the gains made in early trading when new data signalled that the US labour market is loosening amid rising applications for unemployment benefit.
The major indexes tumbled into the red after another day of mixed corporate earnings and continued uncertainty around the US economy’s ability to withstand additional tightening.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7pc to 33,699.88 and the broad-based S&P 500 dropped 0.9pc to 4,081.50. The tech-rich Nasdaq composite slumped 1pc to 11,789.58.
Bullish investors instead flocked to US Treasury market which boasted higher bond yields. The two-year yield traded near 4.5pc and exceeded the 10-year yield by the widest margin since the early 1980s. In the US, yield curve inversions have a track record of preceding economic downturns by 12 to 18 months.
It followed another record breaking session for the FTSE 100, having reached its third intra-day high in a week. The pound had a bumper day too, closing up 0.69pc to $1.215.
However, the price of Bitcoin dropped overnight after cryptocurrency exchange Kraken announced it would pay $30m to settle allegations by the US Securities and Exchange Commission that its staking service breached national securities laws. Rival crypto exchange Coinbase saw its share price dropped 14.13pc at close.
