Thank you for joining me. According to the Office for National Statistics, the British economy contracted more than expected in October.
Gross domestic product contracted 0.3 percent during the month as British households and businesses struggled with interest rates at their highest in 15 years.
5 things to start your day
1) Boat owner investigates the London listing of a high street chain | Plans for an initial public offering could give the struggling stock market a much-needed boost
2) Britain's biggest rail operator faces £1bn of losses as a result of Labor's renationalisation | Analysts at Peel Hunt cut FirstGroup's expected rail revenue in 2026
3) Abolish triple lock and link state pension to income, says IFS | Think tank warns current policy will cost an extra £24bn a year by 2050
4) Jeremy Warner: Pro-lockdown fanatics must not be allowed to rewrite Covid history | Reprimands and insults may be good theater, but they have no practical value at all
5) Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: My experience with heat pumps in France | Our dilapidated stone farmhouse is a good test case for claims and counter-claims of net zero technology
What happened overnight?
Asian stocks were mixed after Wall Street rose to its highest level since early 2022, slightly below its record high, after a report showed inflation in the United States was behaving broadly as expected.
Benchmarks fell in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul, but rose in Tokyo and Sydney. Oil prices slipped.
In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index gained 0.3 percent, or 82.65 points, to close at 32,926.35, while the broader Topix index rose 0.1 percent, or 1.76 points, to 2,354.92. The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia rose 0.4 percent to 7,263.30.
Stocks in China fell as analysts were disappointed by the lack of major stimulus measures at a major economic planning conference that ended on Tuesday.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.7 percent to 16,252.67 and the Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.5 percent to 2,989.15. South Korea's Kospi lost 0.6 percentage points to 2,521.81.
Taiwan's Taiex rose 0.1 percentage points and Bangkok's SET lost 0.5 percentage points.
In New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average of America's top 30 companies closed up 0.4 percent at 36,577.94, while the broader S&P 500 rose 0.5 percent at 4,643.70. The Nasdaq Composite Index, which is heavily weighted toward technology stocks, rose 0.7 percent to 14,533.40.
The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield fell three basis points to 4.2 percent.
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