A Budget in the midst of a ‘Banking Crisis’: What does the statement mean for your investments?

After crashing out in the early stages of the first Conservative Party leadership race of 2022, Jeremy Hunt lamented that he had missed his moment. “It has become obvious to me that you only get one big shot at this,” he said as he resigned himself to a life on the back benches, “and I had mine in 2019.”

Seven months and two Tory Party leaders later, the now-Chancellor of the Exchequer strikes a more upbeat tone. As he announced measures to encourage the over-50s back to work, he joked that he took up a new job in finance soon after his 50th birthday and responded to a heckler that “it was going well, thank you”.

It has been just four months since the last time a Chancellor announced a budget and there is no doubt that this one has been far better received than the last one. But with markets reeling in fear of another banking crisis following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in the US, there has been a disappointingly muted response from domestic stocks.

Still, the 2023 budget was undoubtedly a pro-business one, and there is a lot for...