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Thanks for joining me. House prices dropped in the year to June, according to lender Nationwide.
Property values contracted by 3.8pc following a decline of 3.5pc in May.
5 things to start your day
1) BT appoints its first woman boss to swing the axe on tens of thousands of jobs | Surprise pick Allison Kirkby faces looming challenges at the telecoms giant
2) Britain’s post-Covid debt pile grows at faster pace than all but one EU nation | Slugging economic growth and surging borrowing costs add to UK’s debt burden
3) Aston Martin to raise £210m from investors as it battles to pay down debt pile | Luxury carmaker’s share price more than triples in value since hitting an all-time low in November
4) Toyota ramps up electric car push in China | Japanese carmaker targets Chinese consumers as it shifts focus from hydrogen
5) Costa Coffee faces boycott over ‘irresponsible’ cartoon of post-op trans man | Critics say the image, of someone who has had a double mastectomy, glorifies irreversible surgery
What happened overnight
Australia left its key interest rate unchanged, with central bank governor Philip Lowe saying previous hikes were “working” but the outlook was uncertain.
The pause is the second in a row that the rate has been kept on hold at 4.1pc, following a string of rises aimed at taming runaway prices.
Mr Lowe said inflation – which sits at 6pc – is “declining but is still too high”, against a background of rising rents, below-trend growth and weak household consumption.
Holding the rate will “provide further time to assess the impact of the increase in interest rates to date and the economic outlook”, he said, adding that inflation was expected to return to the bank’s target of 2-3 percent by late 2025.
Stocks rose just before the news, with the benchmark ASX 200 up nearly 0.5pc but the Australian dollar fell against the US dollar.
Equities in Japan and South Korea climbed, placing a gauge of Asian stocks on track for its seventh consecutive advance — a run not seen since January, when investors initially warmed to China’s reopening.
Wall Street stocks ended higher ahead of upcoming key inflation data which will further indicate whether the US economy can expect a soft landing.
The broad-based S&P 500 closed 0.1pc higher at 4,588.96, capping its fifth straight month of gains and its longest winning streak in nearly two years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.3pc to 35,559.53, while the tech-rich Nasdaq composite rose 0.2pc to 13,346.02.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 3.95pc from 3.96pc late Friday.
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