Market Update

If anyone doubted the power of Twitter, their skepticism was laid to rest this week. Early Tuesday afternoon, a tweet from the Associated Press reported President Obama had been injured by explosions in the White House. Stock, bond, and commodity markets fell sharply on the news and then rebounded when the Associated Press communicated that its Twitter account had been hacked. This wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened on Twitter or the first time false and market moving information had been posted. In February, the stocks of Burger King and Jeep moved after a post on each company’s Twitter account indicated the company had been sold to a rival firm. The lesson to take from these events? Everyone may want to be wary about buying or selling investments based on news reported through Twitter or any other social media feeds.

Figures released this week by the office of National Statistics showed that London, the South East and East of England were the only regions with Gross Disposable Household Income (GDHI) per head above the UK average of £16,034.  The rate of annual growth per head decreased in all regions except for the East of England.

The South West and the South East had the highest annual growth in GDHI per head at 3.0%, while London had the lowest at 2.2%.  Of the 37 sub-regions, Inner London had the highest GDHI per head at £23,964 while the West Midlands had the lowest at £12,986.

London was the only region where each local area had GDHI per head above the UK average and Northern Ireland and Wales were the only regions where each local area had GDHI per head below the UK average. 

All major world markets generally recovered from Twitter trickery and were unfazed by mixed economic news. Stock markets finish the week higher with the FTSE 100 gaining 2.3 percent, the FTSE All-Share rising by 2.4 percent and FTSE Small Cap Index up 1.2 percent. Gilt prices were very slightly lower by the end of the week with investors preferring the stock market.