LONDON (ShareCast) - Petrol prices are heading to below £1 a litre for the first time since 2009 in a big pre-election boost for consumers. Plunging world oil prices coupled with a new supermarket price war is driving down pump prices, lowering inflation and leaving consumers with a cash windfall which is boosting economic growth. - The Times
Britain faces years of steeper public borrowing, slower debt reduction and higher taxes after the May election - whichever party is in power - despite the economic recovery remaining on track, according to the Financial Times' annual survey of economists. - Financial Times



For the past decade, the big four British supermarkets - J Sainsbury, Tesco, Asda and Wm Morrison - have gorged themselves on property, but now they are being forced to enter a new era of self-restraint because demand is tumbling and Britons are choosing to shop online. - Financial Times

Messaging app Snapchat has raised its latest round of funding, $485.6m, which may value the US-based company at more than $10bn. The filing leaves those investors unidentified, but reports from Bloomberg andTechCrunch both suggest technology company Yahoo and venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers were involved in the round. - The Guardian

China's economy is likely to miss Beijing's growth target for the first time since the Asian financial crisis at the end of the last century, after official figures showed the country's seismic manufacturing sector barely grew in December. A housing market slump and attempts to rebalance China's heavily investment-dependent economy have held back growth this year, and data on Tuesday showed factory output expanding at its slowest rate for 18 months. - The Daily Telegraph

Britain began to turn its back on music downloads in 2014, with sales of digital albums and singles falling for the first time. Revenues from music downloads in the UK declined 15pc last year - three times faster than sales of the physical formats they were designed to replace - according to figures compiled by the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA). - The Daily Telegraph

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