{"id":548342,"date":"2026-04-24T13:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T13:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/548342\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T13:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T13:38:11","slug":"stock-markets-will-fall-bank-of-england-deputy-governor-says-stock-markets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/548342\/","title":{"rendered":"Stock markets will fall, Bank of England deputy governor says | Stock markets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Record-high global stock markets do not reflect the risks in the global economy, and will fall back, a deputy governor at the Bank of England<\/a> has said.<\/p>\n

Sarah Breeden, the deputy governor for financial stability at the Bank, fears that macroeconomic risks are not fully priced into equity markets. She cited concerns about private credit markets<\/a>, highly valued artificial intelligence stocks, and other \u201crisky valuations\u201d.<\/p>\n

Breeden told the BBC: \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of risk out there and yet asset prices are at all-time highs. We expect there will be an adjustment at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US stock market hit a record high earlier this week as investors shrugged off fears that the energy shock sparked by the Iran war is hurting the global economy and driving up inflation.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s Nikkei<\/a> 225 index ended the day at a record closing high, lifted by a rally in technology stocks after the chipmaker Intel beat forecasts with its latest results on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s FTSE<\/a> 100 share index is about 5% below the record high it reached in late February, just before the Iran war began.<\/p>\n

Concerns about private credit<\/a>, which involves potentially risky loans funded using investors\u2019 money, have been growing in recent months.<\/p>\n

The Bank warned at the end of March<\/a> that valuations were particularly stretched for US technology companies focused on AI, and that investor sentiment relating to risky credit markets had deteriorated even before the conflict in the Middle East began.<\/p>\n

Breeden told the BBC that the Bank was worried about a \u201cprivate credit crunch, rather than a banking-driven credit crunch\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that really keeps me awake at night is the likelihood of a number of risks crystallising at the same time \u2013 a major macroeconomic shock, confidence in private credit goes, AI and other risky valuations readjust \u2013 what happens in that environment and are we prepared for it?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are watching for is: how might those prices fall? Will there be a sharp adjustment downwards? And if there is such an adjustment, how will that affect the economy? I\u2019m not saying it will happen today, tomorrow, in 12 months\u2019 time. It\u2019s ensuring that if it happens the system is resilient,\u201d Breeden added.<\/p>\n

The FTSE 100 fell by nearly 0.5% on Friday, after Breeden\u2019s interview was published, amid a wider market drop as traders worried that there was no sign of a breakthrough in the Iran war.<\/p>\n

Simon French, chief economist at investment bank Panmure Liberum, said it \u201cmight be seen as suboptimal\u201d that Breeden\u2019s warning came in a week that the UK government launched a push to get British savers to invest in the financial markets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, suggested that her suggestion of a potential global stock market correction might be weighing on the City.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unusual for a Bank of England official to explicitly warn about a potential stock market pullback, and the comment might have contributed to some of the FTSE 100\u2019s decline on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cBreeden wasn\u2019t simply referring to the Middle East events \u2013 she also referenced concerns around a private credit crunch, high equity valuations and AI,\u201d Mould added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Record-high global stock markets do not reflect the risks in the global economy, and will fall back, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-548342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}