Market update - June 2018

The 44th G7 summit was held in June and Donald Trump continued his trade war with aluminium and steel tariffs, which have been reciprocated by the country’s largest partners, including Canada, Mexico, the European Union and China. The FTSE 100 ended June at 7,636.93, which was 0.5% lower than the May closing figure of 7,678.20.  It is 8.2% higher than the March closing figure of 7,056,61 and not far off the 2017 closing figure of 7,687.77. In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s performance was similarly down 0.6% to close June at 24,271.41. In terms of £ Sterling, it ended June at 1.32 US Dollars.  This was 0.7% lower than the closing figure at the end of May of 1.33 US Dollars. Against the Euro, it was a similar story with £ Sterling ending June at 1.13 Euros, which was 0.6% lower than the May closing figure. Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH), was 2.3% in May 2018 (this is May’s data which is reported in June).  This was up from 2.2% the previous month.  The 12-month rate for the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rate which excludes owner occupied housing costs and council tax was 2.4% in May 2018, which was unchanged from April, although it is down from 2.5% in March 2018, 2.7% in February 2018 and 3.0% in January 2018. The Bank of England chose to keep interest rates unchanged again this month.  The last increase in interest rates to 0.5% was in November 2017.