Crypto News: The London Rush: Upward revision

Hi, I'm Leo from Bloomberg UK's breaking news team, catching you up on this morning's business stories.

The UK economy grew (a tad) faster than previously estimated in the first quarter, with services and consumer spending both driving the gains.

ONS numbers out this morning show GDP expanded 0.7%, up from an initial gauge of 0.6%. While the final reading helps Rishi Sunak's argument that Britain has turned the corner after last year's recession, it seems highly unlikely it will turn around polls.

A second takeaway from today's numbers is that wages are once again growing faster than prices. A further fillip is expected in the current quarter after April's cut in payroll taxes and big increases in welfare payments, the state pension and the minimum wage.

There are still signs that consumers remain cautious though. The savings ratio, which shows the amount of disposable income that people choose not to spend, rose to 11.1% in the first three months of the year.

That's in sharp contrast with the US, where consumers have lifted spending by holding back a relatively small portion of their incomes.

What's your take? Ping me on X, LinkedIn or drop me an email at lkehnscherpe@bloomberg.net.

(Finally, we must make a small confession regarding yesterday's newsletter, where we managed to misspell the name of our very own In the City podcast — despite being loyal listeners!)

Keywords Studios said it's likely to accept an updated offer from buyout firm EQT that values company at about £1.96 billion. The video game services firm has struggled with a slow recovery from the Hollywood strikes and delayed projects.

The stock jumped more than 6% at the open, but — at 2,300 pence a share — still trades a long way off EQT's 2,450 pence proposal.

Fintel conditionally agreed to buy Abrdn's Threesixty Services, a provider of compliance and business support services to independent financial advisers and wealth manager firms.

Lastly, a sobering thought from Bloomberg Opinion's Chris Hughes, who says Carlsberg's planned purchase of Pepsi bottler Britvic promises to deliver reasonable returns. "But reasonable may not be enough to convince shareholders."

It's six days until the election. Labour holds a 21-point lead over the Tories, according to Bloomberg's polling average.

If Labour were to secure a landslide win, it may suffer most in power from the sheer scale of its recovery in opposition, as my colleague Joe Mayes points out in this great piece looking beyond July 4.

That's as some parents at Eton College are trying to protect themselves from a potential hefty tax bill by paying for years of education upfront.

The education sector should spend more energy coping with Labour's planned levy than objecting to it, writes Bloomberg Opinion's Matthew Brooker.

Here's your daily snap analysis from Bloomberg UK's Markets Today blog:

We've reached the end of the month, the quarter and the first half of the year, which perennially provides an opportunity to look back wistfully at what's happened in markets.

The FTSE 100 is poised to fall in June, following a run of three monthly gains for the index. It's been lacking catalysts somewhat over the course of a month dominated by the general election, the kind of broad risk-laden event that often sends markets into something of a holding pattern. No rate cuts from the Bank of England and a period of being in-between earnings seasons has meant catalysts to drive more gains have been thin on the ground.

However, taking a quarterly view is much rosier. The index is set to notch up its fourth quarterly gain in a row and its best first half of a year since 2021. So far over the course of 2024, it has hit a record high that had been consistently elusive. As we move into the second half, there's been a growing chorus of more positive, or at least less negative, views on how UK stocks are going to fare.

With the election out of the way and hopes that this will bring relative political stability, the increasing likelihood that the BOE will start the rate-cutting cycle, plus the summer earnings season, an improving economy and the ongoing M&A story around cheap UK stocks, the catalysts needed for the FTSE 100 to keep up its run have every chance of materialising.

— Sam Unsted

Check Bloomberg UK's Markets Today blog for updates all day.

Next week's election are set to dominate the headlines, but politics isn't the only game in town.

May mortgage approvals are due on Monday along with Nationwide's latest house price trends. Monday is also the deadline for Brookfield to formalise its offer for warehouse landlord Tritax EuroBox.

Football's chances of coming home may be teetering, if England's performance at the men's Euros is anything to go by. But FIFA has plans to take the beautiful game into even more homes by selling an interest in its FIFA+ streaming service. How much is it seeking to raise?

[Yesterday's answer: The London Tunnels that inspired the creation of James Bond measure a mind-boggling 8,000 square meters, or 86,111 square feet.]

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