London Property Market Snapshot: March 2016
A mixture of subsiding global growth fears, and fresh monetary stimulus meant that, after February’s sell-off, equity markets have recovered some lost ground. In all, key stock markets rose by between 5%-13% from their mid-February lows. US labour market and inflation data implied that fears of a recession are probably overdone. Not only was February’s 242,000 increase in non-farm payrolls strong, but the previous two months also saw upwards revisions of 30,000 each. That said, data out of Europe was disappointing. Reflecting a slowdown in consumer spending, euro-zone GDP growth was just 0.3%q/q in Q4, unchanged from Q3. Moreover, at minus 0.2%y/y in February, CPI data pointed to the remerging risk of deflation.