Budget November 2017.

22nd November 2017

Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered his first Autumn Budget today (last November he abolished the Autumn Statement and replaced it with an Autumn Budget and a Spring Statement).

While this Budget statement will no doubt grab media headlines, from a stock market standpoint this Budget, like many over the last few years, has little influence on UK equity markets. The only impact was on the share prices of residential house builders, which fell slightly following commitments to address the affordability problem faced by many young people. As a consequence, we don’t see the need to make any changes to the current portfolio positioning.

However, the lack of progress in Brexit negotiations and slowdown in economic growth did result in UK growth forecasts being downgraded by 0.5%, 0.2% and 0.4% for 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively.

Ian Copelin, Investment Director