We start in the east this week, Japan in particular, where we had a number of announcements. Firstly, we had the Bank of Japan meet to decide on the level of interest rates. Here the decision was made to keep the rate on hold at -0.1%, which was in line with market expectations.

This week we saw the World Bank make a change to its investment outlook for 2023. The organisation had previously forecast that the global economy would grow by 3% this year.

Some might have expected the first week back in 2023 to be a quiet affair. This has proved not to be the case, however. In the US we had the release of the December FOMC meeting.

“Follow the leader”! Or instead of a game of “Simon Says”, are we currently witnessing a game of “Powell Says”? This week was a week for interest rate decisions, with respective committees meeting in the US, UK and the EU. First up we had the US Federal Reserve, as expected, raised interest rates by 0.5% to the 4.25%-4.50% range. This was the seventh consecutive rate hike…

It was the turn of Halifax to report weaker house prices this week, following a negative report by Nationwide last week. Halifax reported that house prices had fallen by 2.3% in the month of November, the largest drop since November 2008. In the US meanwhile, some economic data surprised to the upside. The ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI for November came out at a stronger-than-expected…

It has been a quieter one on the UK economic data front this week, especially in the UK. There was data out regarding the housing market and it was no real surprise to see a fall in both price and activity here. Mortgage approvals and mortgage lending came in lower than in the previous month and also below forecast.