Euro slides on ECB currency concerns - as it happened

The European Central Bank fears the euro may be "overshooting", posing a threat to crucial exports

• Euro slips amid ECB currency concerns
• UK retail sales volume rose 0.3% in July
• Kingfisher and Rank figures disappoint
• Eurozone inflation steady at 1.3%

1.44pm BST

That's it for the day and the big news came from the European Central Bank minutes and UK retail sales.

ECB minutes revealed that the Bank's policymakers are fretting about the euro "overshooting" against other currencies. That's a concern because a strong euro would make exports from the 19-nation single currency bloc less competitive. The release of the minutes sent the euro on a downward trajectory.

1.41pm BST

Here's Guardian retail guru Sarah Butler with the full lowdown on Asda's first sales rise for three years.

Related: Asda returns to sales growth thanks to price cuts and inflation

1.17pm BST

In a note snappily titled "Eurozone: Between taper and tantrum", analysts at Dutch bank ING have been unpicking those ECB minutes, which have put the euro on the slide.

They are looking ahead to next week's meeting of central bankers at Jackson Hole and think the minutes reflect cautiousness at the ECB about unwinding monetary stimulus.

Today's minutes fit into the picture of an ECB which wants to steer and moderate the process towards tapering extremely cautiously. Yesterday's reports that Mario Draghi would possibly not say anything new on the bank's monetary policy at his speech at the Jackson Hole conference on 25 August had already given the same flavour.

All of this means that in our view the ECB will take another baby step towards tapering at the September meeting.

This could be done by putting more emphasis on the strong economic recovery which easily could do with somewhat less monetary stimulus and/or by using the well-known key phrase that the Governing Council has tasked the relevant committees to investigate several options for QE in 2018.

12.46pm BST

UK retail sales growth may have been pretty lacklustre in July but nobody has told Asda. The British supermarket, part of the world's largest retailer Wal-Mart, has reported its first underlying sales growth for three years.

Like-for-like sales at the UK's third biggest supermarket rose by 1.8% in its second quarter, helped by food price inflation and a comparison against a weak period last year.

12.39pm BST

Details of the European Central Bank's Governing Council meeting for July have been released.

It seems policymakers are concerned about the euro "overshooting" in the future. In other words they're worried the euro may strengthen too much.

The euro has stumbled after ECB voices concerns over the strengthening exchange rate https://t.co/WEGeQ0YIEd pic.twitter.com/l2Sx1AvEZy

12.12pm BST

The Federation of Small Businesses has taken a look at July's UK retail sales and they are not impressed. Here's the verdict of Mike Cherry, the FSB's national chairman.

Confidence among small retailers has plummeted over the first half of the year. We're worryingly close to flat, or even negative, retail sales growth across the UK.

"With operating costs at their highest in four years, small business owners are paying themselves less, struggling to award pay rises and pushing up prices in an attempt to absorb increased outgoings. This threatens to further stifle already reduced consumer spending power.

11.52am BST

A quick check on markets, currencies and commodities as we head towards noon.

11.44am BST

The Guardian business desk's ace new economics correspondent Richard Partington has put some flesh on the bones of those UK retail sales figures. Here's his version of events.

Related: UK retail sales growth flat but beats forecasts

10.53am BST

Time for a bit of light relief after those chewy retail sales figures.

Harper's has published a transcript of the jury selection process in the trial of beleaguered pharmaceuticals chief executive Martin Shkreli, who was convicted of fraud earlier this month.

10.30am BST

Price rises in the 19 countries that share the euro currency held firm during July, with inflation sticking at 1.3% excluding energy and unprocessed food, according to the European statistics office Eurostat.

Inflation remains below the European Central Bank's target of 2% but has ticked up slightly on 1.2% in June and came in above analysts' forecasts of 1.2%.

10.22am BST

Here's some more detail on those lacklustre numbers from B&Q and Screwfix owner Kingfisher.

Related: B&Q owner Kingfisher's sales hammered by bad weather

The failure of this largesse to support the shares raises further questions over whether buybacks are a good value of creating long-term value for investors or not.

10.03am BST

Here comes Howard Archer, chief economic adviser to the EY ITEM Club, without whose analysis no retail sales release would be complete. We've heard the numbers, which were better than expected, but here's Howard's slightly gloomier take on the shape of things to come:

The outlook for consumers looks set to be highly challenging over the latter months of the year, even though a modicum of relief has come from consumer price inflation easing back to 2.6% in July from a near four-year high of 2.9% in May.

Real income growth is currently negative, and it looks likely to remain so through the rest of 2017. Latest Office for National Statistics data show that total real average weekly earnings decreased by 0.5% in the three months to June, which was marginally down from a peak drop of 0.6% in May. Inflation will likely be close to 3% through the latter months of 2017, while earnings growth seems set to hover around 2%

The squeeze on consumers should progressively ease in 2018 due to inflation falling back markedly (as the impact of sterling's sharp fall drops out). However, earnings growth will likely remain relatively muted and employment may well lose momentum.

9.57am BST

Time for some reaction to those UK retail sales figures, which narrowly beat forecasts with a 0.3% rise.

This is what Ruth Gregory, UK economist at Capital Economics, has to say:

July's retail sales figures were fairly encouraging given the recent intensification of the squeeze on consumers' real incomes and suggest that talk of a sharp consumer slowdown has been overdone.

Admittedly, the 0.3% monthly expansion in retail sales volumes (consensus 0.2%) was a bit weaker than the recent upbeat surveys had suggested.

July's wet weather might have dampened fashion sales but the supermarkets' continued creativity together with a good month for homewares meant it was another good month for retailers overall.

While headline inflation may have eased back slightly recently, shoppers are still feeling the squeeze from several months of rising prices and sluggish wage growth.

9.33am BST

July's retail sales rose by 0.3% month-on-month according to the Office for National Statistics, above a Reuters consensus forecast of 0.2%.

June's figures were revised down from 0.6% to 0.3%, a fairly sizeable revision.

9.23am BST

A quick update on President Donald Trump's increasingly fractious relationship with the US business community, which has seen him disband two business councils.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook is the latest chief executive to voice his disapproval of Trump's lacklustre response to the far right's manoeuvres in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I disagree with the president and others who believe that there is a moral equivalence between white supremacists and Nazis, and those who oppose them by standing up for human rights.

Equating the two runs counter to our ideals as Americans.

8.57am BST

While we're waiting for UK retail sales to drop, here's a reminder of what looks likely to be one of the week's biggest business news stories, President Donald Trump's broadside at Amazon and growing friction with US captains of industry.

With a single tweet, the President knocked $5bn off the Amazon share price. Amazon, of course, is run by Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post, never Trump's biggest cheerleader.

Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!

For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!

8.40am BST

Let's have another look ahead to today's UK retail sales figures, due for release by the Office for National Statistics at 9.30am.

The British shopper is a hardy soul, not likely to be deterred by global concerns such as the threat of nuclear war, the rise of the far right in the US, or the impending four-year absence of Big Ben's bongs.

The squeeze on consumer incomes has been particularly apparent in this year's retail sales data which got off to a poor start in Q1, but did improve somewhat in Q2, with a decent rebound at the end of the quarter.

As Q3 gets underway there is some optimism that the July numbers will also show an improvement, if last week's BRC retail sales numbers are any guide.

8.09am BST

The FTSE has been open nearly 10 minutes now and is down around 15 points at 7417, after Kingfisher reported a worse-than-expected second quarter performance for its DIY chain B&Q.

Here's Panmure Gordon's veteran City analyst David Buik with a brief glimpse at the numbers.

KINGFISHER like-for-like sales 2nd Q -1.9% - B&Q 2nd Q sales down 7.7%, - Like-for-like sales 4.7% - a little worse than expected

8.05am BST

Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, has been reading the runes regarding the ECB's plans, with one eye on the meeting of central bank minds at next week's Jackson Hole symposium.

We saw a another decent day for European markets yesterday helped in no small part by a report citing European Central Bank sources that ECB President Mario Draghi would not be making any references to monetary policy at next week's Jackson Hole annual central bank symposium.

This helped push the euro towards its lowest levels this month against the US dollar, while helping support European stocks.

7.58am BST

Stock markets in Europe have been on something of a winning streak of late but that looks like it might come to an end today.

It's red ink across the board, according opening calls from the folks at IG.

Our European opening calls:$FTSE 7410 -0.30%
$DAX 12227 -0.30%
$CAC 5159 -0.34%$IBEX 10522 -0.22%$MIB 21899 -0.39%

7.57am BST

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.

July retail sales due for release at 9.30am will give us an inkling of how the UK consumer is faring given the ongoing squeeze on household incomes, which persists despite inflation coming in lower than expected earlier this week. Eurozone inflation data is out half an hour later at 10am.