Lockdown exit plan to shed light on speed of the recovery

The sharp fall in retail sales in January suggested that January’s lockdown hit the economy harder than November’s lockdown. But at least it doesn’t look like things deteriorated further in February. It’s only when the lockdown is eased, potentially from March, that the economy will really start to recover. A rapid economic recovery in the second half of the year should give gilt yields, sterling and the FTSE 100 a further push up.