There have been more reasons for UK investors to be more optimistic in recent days (though with supermarkets rationing food, real wages still down and a whole host of other geopolitical worries in the background, it’s all relative).
However, the performance of the FTSE 100 this week also shows that sometimes good news is bad news for the market, which you don’t need to be a blockhead to think is being rather silly.
Anyway, here are some reasons to be cheerful, one, two, three (and more).
Inflation
The UK is not alone in trying to make the best of an extended period of high inflation, which has topped double figures since last summer.
It had been expected that consumer price inflation would still be around 5% in this coming autumn, but thanks to lower energy prices and some other factors, economists at Citigroup now forecast inflation will fall much faster.
CPI should fall to below 5% by July and around 2.3% by the end of the year – too short to be haughty, in Ian Dury terms – with a dip below 2% early next year.
Recession
The more encouraging data emerging on the economy also led another major investment banks to make a more optimistic tweak to their forecasts for the year ahead.
The UK should not need to grin and bear for too much longer as a recession is no longer on the cards, JP Morgan said, thanks to lower gas prices and unclogged supply chains and improving business confidence.
Other recent macroeconomic numbers have also backed up its view, showing the "resilience" in jobs market vacancies and rising business confidence.
Jobs
Indeed, from the top down the jobs market does look reasonably healthy.
Unemployment remained at 3.7% according to the latest update, with average earnings up 6.7%, or 7.3% in the private sector, and the number of payrolled employees for January 2023 showing another monthly increase to 30mln.
But for those losing their jobs at British Steel, the 15,000 to have been axed in the retail sector and all the UK staff affected by the swinging tech sector contraction, thoughts on the working folly ain't quite so rosy.
Interest rates
But depending on whether your priorities are as a saver, climbing the property ladder or running the Bank of England, the resulting impact of these improving economic factors on interest rates means different things for different people.
For most economists, it means that another interest rate hike is very likely at March's monetary policy committee meeting, though the following MPC get-together, in May, is still up in the air.
But following the hikes from 0.25% to 3.50% last year, that may be on a par with even that might be on a par with Hammersmith Palais, the Bolshoi ballet, jump back in the alley and nanny goats.
All the above seems to have been reflected in Friday's uptick in consumer confidence data, though the long-running index is still heavily in negative territory.