This week, virtually all news has been dominated by the traumatic events in Ukraine.
Further rounds of sanctions against the Russian Federation, its businesses and multiple individuals have been announced this week.
We have seen further consolidation and agreement on the part of Western Governments on actions to take.
In the private sector, a slew of companies from Apple to Aeroflot’s ticketing partner have announced they are pulling out of the country. This has inevitably led to market volatility. The FTSE for example is down over 6% on this time last month. (This is nothing though in comparison to the Russian stock market which has pretty much collapsed.)
With the price of Crude now hitting over $110 a barrel, UK petrol prices hit £1.50 this week, further exacerbating the UK’s cost of living crisis. This also comes at a time when many people are being shifted onto new, much more expensive home energy tariffs.
In other news, it was announced that the cost of a first class stamp is being increased by 10p making it now 95p per stamp.
In the world of currencies, the Pound has reached it’s highest level since the night of the Brexit referendum in 2016!
Against the US Dollar, we’ve continued to see a decline as the week’s gone on and the news out of Ukraine has gotten worse.
In Canada, Interest rates were hiked from 0.25% to 0.5%.
Finally, some positive news to finish a pretty bleak week, in Australia the Humpback Whale has been removed from the endangered species list!
