The Latest: On January 19 2024, the Office for National Statistics reported December 2023 retail sales data, showing volume sales contracting 2.2% y-o-y and value sales growing 2.4% y-o-y. Of note though, was the m-o-m decline of -3.3% and -3.5% for December 2023 respectively, highlighting the change in consumer purchasing patterns over the

The Latest: On December 21 2023, the UK and Switzerland signed the Berne Financial Services Agreement, a wide-ranging deal that sees the two markets mutually recognise each other’s regulatory regimes in financial services. British banks, asset managers, investment services firms and insurance brokers will now be able to service Swiss clients

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• On December 22, the Office for National Statistics released the second estimate of UK Q3 2023 GDP, which saw two big revisions: growth in Q2 2023 was revised from +0.2% q-o-q to zero growth and Q3 from zero growth to -0.1%.
• In response, we have lowered our 2023 growth estimate from 0.5% to 0.3% while we held our 2024 forecast at -0.1

The Latest: On December 12 2023, AstraZeneca announced it has agreed to acquire US-based vaccine manufacturer, Icosavax. Under the terms of the deal, AstraZeneca will pay Icosavax USD800mn upfront, with further payments due if certain regulatory and sales milestones are reached, which could potentially take the deal to USD1.1bn. Icosavax uses an

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• The Bank of England (BoE) held Bank Rate steady at 5.25% on December 14, marking the third rate hold in a row. The BoE has clearly entered a holding pattern, which we expect to extend well into 2024.
• We anticipate that the BoE will begin to reduce rates in H2 2024, with 75bps of cuts pencilled in by end-2024.
• In spite of a weak

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• The recently introduced Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines will act as boon to UK's pharmaceutical industry.
• This agreement sets the stage for enhanced collaboration and innovation within the UK's pharmaceutical sector.
• Despite several advantages, the scheme presents challenges, particularly to generic manufacturers.

The newly

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• Regulatory approval granted for the development of the Rosebank project will provide a much-needed boost to the UK's oil production in the latter half of this decade.
• The strong risk of a change in UK government which would see less supportive government policy towards future oil and gas projects could lead to an immediate increase

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• In Q323, the UK economy recorded zero growth in q-o-q terms, which followed an expansion of 0.2% q-o-q in Q2.
• While this outcome differed from the 0.1% q-o-q expansion which conditioned our forecast for a 2023 growth rate of 0.5%, the ONS’ Blue Book GDP revisions (which boosted output for previous periods) has neutered the impact on

The Latest: The UK monthly GDP release for September showed an expansion of 0.2% m-o-m in real terms but this was insufficient to prevent the economy from stagnating in Q323. Analysis of the expenditure components showed a 0.5% q-o-q contraction in household spending in Q3 while fixed investment declined by 2.0%. A contraction in the domestic

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• The BoE opted to hold Bank Rate at 5.25% for the second meeting in a row on November 2. We believe that this is the terminal interest rate of this cycle.
• We believe that the BoE is unlikely to implement any further rate hikes, considering that the effects of previous rate increases have not yet fully impacted the economy.
• This