Following a Sterling rally last week, particularly against the USD, the Pound has dropped back off following Monday’s dismal UK manufacturing PMI data.
Manufacturing activity in the UK came in considerably worse than expectation with June’s figure at 54.3 as compared to a previous figure of 56.3.
This figure, showing expansion, demonstrates that the manufacturing sector was largely unaffected by the uncertainty surrounding the UK General Election and the start of the Brexit process. However, crucially, the rate of expansion slowed again which remains a cause for concern in the long term.
To further compound this point construction PMI released today stalled in June and also missed expectations. This reflects weaker rises in commercial building and civil engineering projects.
UK Wage Growth With yesterday’s UK employment figures came some somewhat surprising commentary: inflation at 3.2% was good news for the Bank of England and the likelihood for a cut in interest rates had increased. The latter is of course good for the economy and particularly beleaguered householders worrying about their cheap mortgage deals running […]
Chancellor Reeves Market observers were no better informed at the end of the Rachel Reeves speech than they were at the outset yesterday morning. The only surprise was that having comprehensively floated options in the past two months for inclusion in her November 26 Autumn Statement, that the Chancellor should have elected to speak at […]
Canola for Cars That was the deal struck by Canada’s Mark Carney with China’s President Xi on Friday evening in Beijing. The China tariff until then on canola oil imported from Canada was 85% but that will fall to 15% and in exchange Canada will levy a mere 6.1% on the imports of Chinese electric […]