Is there a recession looming, will the pound keep falling and what next for interest rates?

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2019

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The pound has been battered and bruised of late and it took another blow last week with gloomy news about the UK economy.

With a no-deal potentially in the offing, how much more of a pounding will sterling take?

Editor Simon Lambert, assistant editor Lee Boyce and host Georgie Frost look at what lies behind the decline, why it's fallen so much when jobs, wages and inflation aren't doing badly and what it could mean for interest rates.

We also ask: is a recession coming? And as the cost of living nudged higher, with inflation recorded at 2.1 per cent, what was behind the surprise increase?

Elsewhere, should you fix your mortgage for 10 years? Banks and building societies are increasingly catering to the rising demand.

One of the biggest last minute holiday hassles is sorting out money and something we often leave to the last minute.

But you could avoid all that and sign up for a credit or debit card that comes with no extra fees spending abroad and doesn't load currency conversions in the bank's favour.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Money in Partnership with Switch, saving you time and money by automatically switching your energy provider whenever a better deal comes along.
0:09.0	I'm Georgie Frost and joining editor Simon Lambert and I today is Assistant Editor Lee Boyce.
0:14.0	And coming up, the pound.
0:16.0	Bruised and battered by Brexit, it took another blow last week with some rather gloomy news
0:21.1	about the UK economy. But with a no deal potentially in the offing, how much more of a
0:26.4	pounding will Sterling take? We look at what lies behind the decline, indeed why it's fallen
0:31.4	so much when jobs, wages and inflation aren't doing too badly and what this means for interest
0:36.8	rates and for the
0:37.7	pound in your pocket. Don't forget you to update with all the latest breaking money news,
0:41.8	just go to this ismoney.co.uk or download the app.
0:45.9	But first, today we're taking a load of economic figures and we are telling you what they
0:49.5	all mean. GDP was down last week. The pound took another hit. It's recovered ever so slightly, but left us wondering how much lower can it go with a no-deal Brexit on the cards and will interest rates also go the way of sterling down rather than up?
1:05.6	Something that has surprisingly increased is the cost of living, inflation now at 2.1%, and of course, commuters
1:13.6	not happy at the moment. But before that, firstly Simon, a bit of an economics 101, if you would.
1:21.6	Remind us, when we talk about the price of sterling, what do we actually mean by it? And when I say that, what is the significance?
1:31.0	Should we be worried if it falls? Well, in some senses, it can actually be an economic
1:36.6	positive if it falls because it makes your goods cheaper for the rest of the world to buy.
1:42.8	However, that is something of a short-term boost,
1:46.4	whereas actually the measure of your currency against other global currencies is usually the
1:52.6	best measure of your economic standing in the world. It's a measure of how positively or
1:59.2	negatively the rest of the world views your prospects, because if the rest of the world views your prospects. Because
2:02.1	if the rest of the world views your prospects positively, it will be keen to buy assets in
	...

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