London - The weakening currency helped the London stock market outperform its peers.
Published: Wed 12 Aug 2020, 11:00 PM
Updated: Thu 13 Aug 2020, 1:55 AM
The pound dropped on Wednesday as Britain's coronavirus-ravaged economy shrank by a record 20.4 per cent in the second quarter when the lockdown was tightest, the most severe contraction reported by any major economy so far, with a wave of job losses
set to hit later in 2020.
The weakening currency helped the London stock market outperform its peers as investors bought into UK-based multinational companies earning much of their income in dollars.
The scale of the economic hit may also revive questions about Prime Minister Boris Johnson's handling of the pandemic, with Britain suffering the highest death toll in Europe. More than 50,000 UK deaths have been linked to the disease.
"Today's figures confirm that hard times are here," Finance Minister Rishi Sunak said.
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