UK unemployment hits record low

The UK’s unemployment rate remained at 4.9% between April and June, its lowest rate for eight years.

The total number of unemployed fell by 52,000 to 1.64 million between April and June, with the labour market continuing on a “strong trend”.

In terms of the effect of Brexit, however, ONS statistician David Freeman commented, “little of today’s data covers the period since the result of the EU referendum became known, with only claimant count and vacancies going beyond June – to July for the former and to May-July for the latter.”

FTSE dragged by Admiral

The FTSE 100 dropped this morning after open, pulled down by an 8 percent fall in Admiral shares.

The insurance firm saw reasonably strong results, with a pre-tax profit of £189.5 million in line with forecasts. However it warned of risks moving forward with Brexit, and highlighted the current effect if has had on their solvency ratio.

Admiral (LON:ADM) are currently trading down 8.21 percent at 2,068.84 (1030GMT).

Households more positive post-Brexit in August – Markit

British households have recovered slightly from post-Brexit uncertainty, according to Markit’s Household Finance Index.

The HFI figure for August hit its highest level in four months at 44.9. Markit senior economist Jack Kennedy said in a statement:

“Concerns seem to have eased in line with the removal of some of the immediate political uncertainty arising from the shock referendum result, combined with a strong monetary policy response from the Bank of England.”

17/08/2016