Thanks for joining me. We begin the day with a look at retail sales, which bounced back in Britain last month.
The Office for National Statistics said retailers’ sales volumes were up 0.5pc in July compared to June, following a slump of 0.9pc the previous month.
5 things to start your day
1) Rachel Reeves warns of tax rises despite best growth in G7 | Chancellor reiterates need to take ‘tough decisions’ after British economy grows by 0.6pc
2) Why your takeaway delivery rider could be an illegal Channel migrant | Fears are growing that the food delivery business has become a magnet for those with no right to work in the UK
3) How lockdown sparked an epidemic of hostile and angry boys | Evidence is mounting into what could prove to be the ‘biggest mistake’ of the pandemic
4) Tom Stevenson: Stock market volatility is back – and there are three steps to surviving it | Bottling your holiday zen is the silver bullet to handling the next bout of turbulence
5) Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: America will keep spending money like a drunken sailor until the world stops funding it | Washington’s unchecked borrowing is evidence of a decadent society that has lost all self-discipline
What happened overnight
Japanese stocks led the gains in Asian markets after Wall Street rallied to one of its best days of the year as data showed the US economy is holding up better than expected.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 is set to end a week of gains, with the index surging 2.9pc to 37,800.42.
It rebounded from the large selloff last week, where the higher interest rate from the Bank of Japan made investors who had borrowed in yen and invested in dollar assets sell their holdings to cover the higher costs in the “carry trades” deals.
The yen went weaker against the greenback this week. The dollar fell to 148.88 yen from 149.27 yen in morning trading, while it was hovering around 146 during the previous week.
The Hang Seng in Hong Kong added 1.6pc to 17,376.44, and the Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1pc higher to 2,879.93.
In South Korea, the Kospi jumped 1.8pc, to 2,692.65. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 advanced 1.1pc to 7948.90.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 jumped 1.6pc to 5,543.22 for its fourth-best day of the year and its sixth day of gains in a row as the US stock market rights itself following a sell-off. It is back to within 2.2pc of its all-time high set last month.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.4pc, closing at 40,563.06, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.3pc higher to 17,594.50 as Nvidia and other Big Tech stocks recovered more of their stumbles from the last month.
In the debt market, the yield on benchmark 10-year US Treasury bonds climbed up to 3.91pc from 3.84pc late on Wednesday.