The Monday note - 20 November 2017

• The FTSE 100 index fell by 52 points last week to close at 7,380.7 on Friday, as concerns over the Chinese economy hit the shares of mining and energy firms. The ten year Gilt yield stood at 1.30%. 
• According to the Financial Times, recent legislation which granted more independence to Housing Associations will reduce public sector debt and provide the Chancellor of the Exchequer with an extra £5 billion per year to spend. The move comes just ahead of this week’s budget speech. 
• Weekend news articles also suggested the government will this week allow testing of driverless cars on the UK’s street from 2019, followed by autonomous vehicles operating freely by 2021. 
• While demonstrating their new electric truck, Tesla announced plans to launch a new roadster in 2020 capable of 0-60 mph in less than two seconds. 

Chief Economist comments: 

An encouraging development since the vote to leave the EU has been the on-going momentum displayed by tech firms. To add to Apple’s giant pre-let at the Battersea Power Station, and Amazon’s rapid UK headcount growth, we can now add Facebook’s search for a much larger headquarters in London.

Given this, talk of the Chancellor using this week’s budget to help the tech sector is good news for the economy. At present, there is too much attention focussed on the Brexit uncertainty facing the banks – who were consolidating even before the referendum – when in fact the bigger story is the strong growth being achieved by the tech sector in Britain.