Noughties “worst investment decade since 1930s”

The UK in the first decade of the new century recorded the lowest economic growth of the postwar period and the worst returns for stock-market investors since the 1930s, according to a Financial Times analysis of official and market data.

Information provided by the Office of National Statistics to the FT shows that GDP, on average, rose by 1.7 per cent annually in real terms throughout the so-called noughties, Britain’s weakest period of economic expansion of any since the 1940s.

Manufacturing was particularly hard hit and, on average, after adjusting for inflation, output actually contracted over the decade by 1.2 per cent annually.

Meanwhile, the British stock market suffered its weakest performance of any decade since the Great Depression, with prices on the FTSE All Share Index recording negative returns, averaging -1.8 per cent per year, according to Morgan Stanley.

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