Thanks for joining me. Retail sales bounced back last month after their worst slump since Covid lockdown restrictions in the run-up to Christmas, official figures show.
Sales volumes grew by 3.4pc in January, according to the Office for National Statistics.
5 things to start your day
1) Britain suffers longest hit to living standards since records began | UK slides into technical recession but economists warn it masks a bleaker picture
2) How worklessness and school truancy drove Britain into recession | Tories’ hopes of a feelgood factor are quashed as the economy remains stuck in the red
3) Germany’s largest lender orders managers back to the office four days a week | Deutsche Bank’s more junior staff must come to the office at least two-thirds of the time
4) Jeremy Warner: The AI jobs slaughter is coming for tech first | Highly skilled workers are at risk in the coming jobs revolution
5) Kallum Pickering: Britain is on the verge of a new house price boom | It is now even more evident why the panic over a property market crash was overblown
What happened overnight
Shares advanced in Asia, with Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index trading near a record high, 35 years after it peaked and then plunged with the collapse of Japan’s financial bubble.
The Nikkei 225 closed 0.9pc higher, at 38,487.24. It has been hovering just below the record high of 38,915.87 that it set on December 29, 1989, right before a plunge in share and property prices ushered in an era of slower, faltering growth. At its highest point Friday, it traded at 38,865.06.
Share prices have been pressing higher despite persisting signs of weakness in the Japanese economy, which fell into recession in the last quarter of 2023. Efforts to sustain growth at higher levels have had limited success, undermined by weak private investment and consumer spending.
Changes to rules regarding tax-free investment accounts have accounted for some of the runup in Japanese share prices. A weak yen has attracted bargain hunters, and stocks also have profited from investors shifting out of Chinese markets.
Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index jumped 2.5pc to 16,340.85 and the Kospi in Seoul rose 1.3pc to 2,647.94.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 climbed 0.7pc to 7,658.30. Bangkok’s SET was flat and the Sensex in India was up 0.5pc.
Taiwan’s Taiex edged 0.2pc lower a day after breaching a record high of 18,644.57 as major market mover TSMC, the world’s biggest computer chip maker, surged nearly 8pc.
That jump followed an upgrade by analysts of share price recommendations for Nvidia, whose main chip supplier is TSMC, due to expected growth in artificial intelligence.
In Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 leading US companies rose 0.91pc, to 38,773.12, while the S&P 500 gained 0.58pc, to 5,029.73. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite index gained 0.30pc, to 15,906.17.
The yield on all-important 10-year US Treasury bonds fell to 4.24pc from 4.27pc late on Wednesday.