United Kingdom

Brexit budget - Grim outlook as UK economic forecasts downgrade

Yet another UK trader is being punished by overzealous regulators for an accomplishment that should instead have earned him accolades: Outsmarting the machines.

In a case that echoes some of the circumstances surrounding the scapegoating of former UK-based trader Nav Sarao, former Bank of America Merrill Lynch bond trader Paul Walter has been fined 60,000 pounds by the FCA for a practice that regulators call ‘algo baiting’.

Update: after the GBP initially dropped on the lower GDP forecasts, it has since rallied after Hammond finished speaking , in what Citi said was a "relief rally" as there were no "banana skins and government safe. Relief trade here."

Global shares hit another record high on Wednesday, propelled higher by what increasingly more call (ir)rational exuberance, and investors’ unflagging enthusiasm for tech stocks. That said, S&P futures are unchanged the morning before Thanksgiving (at least before the market open ramp), as are European stocks (Stoxx 600 is flat), despite the euphoria in the Asian session which saw the MSCI Asia Pac index hit a new all time high...

At lunchtime today, Philip Hammond will give the weakened Conservative government’s first budget in the new parliament.

Against a likely backdrop of downgrades for the economy from the OBR, the Chancellor will be under immense pressure to provide a sound plan going forward on many issues. As Statista's Martin Armstrong notes, the NHS has already had its call for an emergency boost of £4 billion rejected, but there will need to be at least some answers to the problems surrounding health and public services funding.