The Monday note - 3 April 2017

• The FTSE 100 had a flat week, closing at 7,322.9 on Friday. Ten year Gilt yields hardened to 1.13% as the UK served notice to leave the EU. 
• A survey of 80 central banks by trade journal, Central Banking, showed that Brexit has not impacted their view of the pound as a reserve currency. Around 71% said they had confidence in sterling’s long-term prospects. 
• Lloyd’s of London plans to open an office with 60 staff in Brussels in order to continue serving EU clients after Brexit. The insurance market’s Chief Executive said “the odd job” might be relocated there from London. 
• Tesla shipped over 25,000 cars in Q1 2017, which was ahead of a consensus forecast of 24,200, and a record for the firm. 

Chief Economist comments: 

We have for the last year been listening to frightening predictions of how many finance and insurance jobs the UK might lose as a result of leaving the EU – some as high as 100,000 roles. Now we are starting to see announcements, and the figures are far lower than expected. Lloyd’s of London is talking about “the odd job” leaving the UK, Barclays says 150 roles, and while HSBC is much higher at 1,000 jobs, even they are prefixing that number with the words “up to”. Yes, jobs are moving abroad but not on the scale originally suggested.