Seven days in the Square Mile

A U-turn on monetary policy from the US Federal Reserve, as it switched from signalling further interest rate rises, put a rocket under stock markets, which rallied globally. Following several successive days of gains, the FTSE 100 soared as high as 7,180, before falling back slightly. The economic news was less rosy. According to the IHS Markit purchasing managers’ index, Britain’s service sector “stagnated” in January, and there is a risk of the manufacturing sector falling into recession. The figures revealed that manufacturers were preparing for Brexit by stockpiling raw materials at a record pace. Italy, the eurozone’s third largest economy, slipped into recession in the last quarter of 2018, for the third time in a decade. The turmoil in the car market continued. Nissan’s move to shift production of its new X-trail model from Britain to Japan kicked up a storm; General Motors said it would slash thousands of jobs in the US. Slack Technologies, a corporate messaging service, said it intends to list, with a possible $10bn value. Ladbrokes was slammed by MPS for advising shop staff to sign up as many gamblers as possible to online accounts if they wanted to avoid redundancy. Air regulators in the UK and Europe grounded Turkmenistan Airlines for safety reasons, leaving thousands of passengers stranded. Interserve, the troubled outsourcer, has handed control of the business to banks under an emergency rescue plan.