Thanks for being with us today. We start with data showing British manufacturers boosted trade with the EU last year.
More than half of trade from the UK last year headed to the bloc, despite warnings that Brexit would damage exporters.
5 things to start your day
1) Britain facing years of stagnation because of high interest rates, Treasury model predicts | Hawkish rises will condemn economy to sluggish growth, EY Item Club says
2) British Airways owner backs Teesside green jet fuel maker in net zero push | IAG will help the start-up establish the UK’s first commercial sustainable fuel factory
3) BT challenger Cityfibre’s losses nearly double to £210m | Rising interest rates pile pressure on debt-fuelled broadband rollout
4) Elon Musk vows to scrap Twitter’s logo | Replacing the signature blue bird suggests an ‘everything app’ rebranding is underway
5) Russia’s economy is on the brink as Putin’s war chest empties | The country’s cash fortress is crumbling as oil profits plunge and the workforce flees conscription
What happened overnight
Asian shares braced for an action-packed week of earnings and central bank meetings that will likely see higher interest rates in Europe and the United States, and just possibly the end of the monetary tightening cycle in both.
Markets are fully priced for quarter-point hikes from the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank, so the focus will be on what Fed Chair Jerome Powell and ECB President Christine Lagarde say about the future.
The odd man out will be the Bank of Japan which meets on Friday and is thought likely to keep its super-loose policy intact, but some Western banks are speculating on a tweak to its yield curve control stance.
Asian shares have advanced after Wall Street closed out another winning week, with Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index adding 1.2pc to 32,696.65, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong dropped 1.4pc to 18,808.59.
The Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1pc higher to 3,170.30. In Seoul, the Kospi gained 0.4pc to 2,621.56. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.1pc at 7,319.60.
The SET in Bangkok picked up 0.2pc and the Sensex in India was up less than 0.1pc.
Later today, the PMIs for the UK, eurozone and US will be out, giving a sense of the different economies’ performances in July.
Andrew Griffith, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, is today writing to banks over concerns accounts are being shut for people’s political views, following the Nigel Farage row.
Elon Musk has said he will remove Twitter’s branding and replace it with X as soon as today.
Domino’s Pizza and Liberty Global will deliver results in the US later today.
