Sunday newspaper round-up: Consumer confidence, Retailers, Milk

(Sharecast News) - Britons' confidence in their finances plumbed to its lowest level since the start of the Covid-19 lockdown, the results of a survey conducted by PwC showed. Worries about higher prices and the cost of living dragged the index down to -20, against a reading of +8 one year before and of -26 at the beginning of the pandemic. Across all age groups, consumers were planning to rein in spending on eating out, clothes and holiday trips, even as they braced for higher spending on groceries. - Sunday Times

Asos and Kingfisher are among the British retailers being targeted by hedge funds which are making huge bets that they will struggle. Others include AO World, Boohoo, Aston Martin, Cineworld, Dixons Carphone, Naked Wines and Royal Mail. Those bets come on the back of research showing that consumers are pulling back on spending on the likes of clothing, furniture and white goods, opting instead to focus on essentials. - Financial Mail on Sunday

Dairy farmers meeting in Brussels have held crisis talks to discuss rocketing costs and supply chain disruptions, amid warnings that the price of a pint of milk could soar by as much as 50%. According to Kite Consulting, the cost of four pints could rise from approximately £1.15 to between £1.60 and £1.70. Pointing to the rising cost of everything from fuel and fertiliser to feed prices, Andrew Kuyk, director general of the Provision Trade Federation, said: "The direction of travel is bad. The strength of the price increases is stronger than most people will have known in recent times because this is all pretty unprecedented." - Sunday Telegraph

Homebuilder Travis Perkins will stop sourcing 'conflict timber' from Russia and Belarus due to the war in Ukraine. That follows a ruling last month by leading forest certification organisations that all products coming from Belarus and Russia would be considered 'conflict timber'. - Financial Mail on Sunday

The president of the US Teamsters union has vowed to press Amazon harder and to pursue the unionisation of the e-commerce giant on its own following a vote by its workers in New York to create the first union in the company within the US. Another vote in Alabama went against the union initially but the final outcome would depend on 416 challenged ballots. - Guardian