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UK share markets are likely to open lower on Tuesday, 2 March, as investors turn sceptical ahead of the Budget 2021 presentation. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is slated to make the Budget statement to the respective MPs in the House of Commons on 3 March.
The Budget 2021 will be crucial for the economy, as well as the financial markets, as the UK government will be outlining the investment roadmap for the year that can steer a quick bounce in the recovery cycle.
Equities dwindle
The futures linked to the benchmark FTSE 100 traded 0.30 per cent, lower on Tuesday, indicating a negative start to the London equities. Most of the Asian markets also hovered in the negative region, furthering the pessimism amidst the market participants.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 0.87 per cent, China’s Shanghai Composite shed 1.55 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng skid 1.30 per cent, Australia’s ASX 200 ended down 0.40 per cent, while South Korea’s Kospi and India’s Nifty gained between 0.64 and 0.68 per cent, respectively.
GBP skids below 1.39
The Great Britain pound (GBP) extended losses on Tuesday, with a unit of pound sterling falling below the level of 1.39 at the interbank foreign exchange market. The GBP vs United States dollar (USD) pair shuttled in negative territory as caution prevailed ahead of the Budget 2021.
According to the latest data available, the GBP vs USD pair was trading at 1.3880 (0557 GMT), down 0.30 per cent from the previous close of 1.3922. In the intraday session so far, the currency pair has oscillated between a narrow range of 1.3867 and 1.3932. The Bank of England had fixed a currency conversion rate of 1.3976 USD and 1.1513 EUR against a unit of GBP on 26 February.
Hancock updates on Covid-19
Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock, on Monday, 1 March, said more than 20 million people across various jurisdictions in the UK have received a Covid-19 vaccine jab while updating the situation of hospital admissions, death rate and the ongoing immunisation programme.
To ensure a hassle-free continuation and expansion of the present roll-out of vaccines, Sunak will be allocating monetary support to the tune of £1.65 billion, bolstering the vaccination drives across various parts of the UK.
A definitive part of the total will be directed towards testing and development of Covid-19 vaccines at a further stage, paving the way for the invention of the next generation of coronavirus vaccines that can emerge more effective in combating the mutated variants of the virus.
Meanwhile, a recent study has revealed that a single dose of Covid-19 vaccine has been effective in reducing hospital admissions by more than 80 per cent, while the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has guided an 83 per cent drop in the fatal cases associated with coronavirus.
