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The weather-related volatility of the past few months has made reading the underlying trend of consumer spending difficult. However, it is increasingly looking like consumers have become much more cautious since the initial post-snow bounce in spending at …
24th March 2011
February’s official retail sales figures added to the increasing amount of evidence suggesting that consumer spending growth has slowed sharply since the initial bounce in spending at the start of the year. … UK Retail Sales (Feb …
The Budget was a fairly cautious affair, with the Chancellor introducing a fiscally neutral package of measures and hence sticking closely to the existing austerity plans. Nonetheless, the Government’s fiscal consolidation plans continue to rest on a …
23rd March 2011
The minutes of March’s MPC meeting show that most Committee members are still reluctant to start tightening monetary policy when there is so much uncertainty about the growth and inflation outlook. A near-term rate rise is still a significant risk, but is …
This checklist is intended to help clients keep track of the important measures and numbers announced during the Chancellor’s Budget speech at 12.30pm and to provide some instant context. … UK Budget Checklist …
February’s public finances and consumer prices numbers presented a distinctly unfavourable backdrop to tomorrow’s Budget. … Consumer Prices & Public Finances …
22nd March 2011
The catastrophic events in Japan have contributed to a reassessment of the likely path of UK interest rates that was already underway before the tragedy struck. Nonetheless, a strong signal from the Government in Wednesday’s Budget that it intends to …
21st March 2011
The latest labour market figures gave slightly mixed messages. But the fundamental picture is that both activity and price pressures in the labour market remain weak. … UK Labour Market Data …
16th March 2011
The Budget on March 23rd will probably include some minor measures to ease concerns over the economy and sky-high oil prices. But the Coalition Government is not likely to signal any significant scaling back of its planned spending cuts. The big squeeze …
15th March 2011
News on consumer spending has been trickling in over the last couple of weeks. While each piece of news has not been significant on its own, put it all together and a pretty convincing picture of a sharp slowdown in consumer spending growth emerges. … …
14th March 2011
February’s producer prices figures revealed another sharp rise in firms’ costs. But they also provided a bit of reassurance that consumer price inflation should still fall sharply next year. … UK Producer Prices …
11th March 2011
With the economic outlook little clearer than when it last met, it was never that likely that the Monetary Policy Committee would act today. We still think that the chances of an interest rate rise in the next few months have got pretty close to 50/50. …
10th March 2011
January’s UK industrial production figures show that the manufacturing recovery has retained a lot of momentum. But given the sector’s relative small share of GDP, it will still make only a modest contribution to the overall economic recovery. … UK …
Temporary factors drove at least part of the improvement in the UK’s trade position in January. As with the rest of the economy, reading the underlying trend at the moment is fairly tricky. Nonetheless, we still doubt that the external sector will fully …
9th March 2011
House prices fell a little further in February and activity levels remained static at depressed levels. Consistent with that, the BRC survey brought further evidence that the squeeze on household incomes, as well as rising uncertainty over job security …
8th March 2011
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) seems to be getting closer to raising interest rates soon. However, most members still want to wait for a clearer picture regarding the underlying pace of recovery. And the latest data have done little to clarify …
7th March 2011
The rise in oil prices has raised fears about the prospects for the economic recovery. Obviously the economy has changed a great deal since the oil price shocks of the 1970s, when sharp oil price rises pushed the UK into recession. Nonetheless, the …
The latest decline in the Halifax house price index underlines that the pressures weighing on prices are still very much with us. If, as we expect, these pressures build this year – for example, if unemployment rises sharply – then significant house price …
4th March 2011
A two speed recovery appears to be emerging, with a buoyant manufacturing sector contrasting with a struggling housing and consumer sector. … Two speed recovery …
3rd March 2011
This Focus sets out the key pay settlements which are likely to be concluded in the coming months. A number of settlements have already been concluded this year and data provider IDS has reported that the median pay settlement rose from 2.2% to 2.8% in …
February’s UK CIPS/Markit report on services showed that growth in the biggest part of the economy has slowed since January’s post-snow rebound. However, it remains hard to gauge how well the underlying recovery is faring. … UK CIPS/Markit Report on …
Concerns about the knock-on effects of the rise in inflation on inflation expectations tend to focus on the expectations of households and financial markets. But of most direct importance for the inflation outlook is whether firms think that there has …
2nd March 2011
The MPC’s preferred measure of broad money growth has continued to accelerate and is now getting pretty close to the rates the Committee has been aiming for. However, we doubt that this growth can be sustained when bank lending is still so weak. … …
1st March 2011
Today’s data further highlight the growing divergence between the strength of the recoveries in the industrial and consumer sectors of the UK economy. … CIPS/Markit Report on Manuf. (Feb.) & H'hold borrowing …
This morning’s data paints a picture of a housing market that is struggling for direction. But while the pace of any further falls is hard to judge, with mortgage demand so low, February’s modest rise in the Nationwide house price index is unlikely to be …
The Monetary Policy Committee has suggested that nominal GDP growth can be sustained even if money growth remains weak. This might happen to some extent. But the big picture is that money growth at its current rates is still consistent with a sluggish …
28th February 2011
The MPC’s hawks now need the support of just two more members to push through an interest rate rise. Some members (such as Paul Tucker) look more likely to switch sides than others (such as Charlie Bean or David Miles), but ultimately what rates do will …
The slight downward revision to UK GDP in Q4 means that, snow effects aside, activity is now estimated to have contracted a touch at the end of last year. Although the economy bounced back in January, it remains unclear how far this just reflects weather …
25th February 2011
The CBI’s latest surveys suggest that any bounce-back in overall household spending following December’s heavy snow has been short-lived. We continue to think that household spending may fall by around 0.5% this year. … UK CBI Services (Q1) & Dist. Trades …
24th February 2011
In this morning’s MPC minutes, the Committee voiced some concern about how a rate rise might affect consumer confidence. The relationship between interest rates and consumer confidence has weakened since the early 1990s. But with consumers’ incomes …
23rd February 2011
The hawkish tone of February’s UK MPC minutes suggests that the chances of a near-term interest rate rise are higher than previously thought. Indeed, we would now put the chances of a May hike at pretty much 50/50. However, the minutes made it clear that …
January’s public finance figures provided reassurance that the Government is on track to meet this year’s borrowing forecasts. However, we continue to think that the slowing recovery will mean that the Government struggles to meet its borrowing forecasts …
22nd February 2011
Tentative evidence of a rise in pay settlements has raised concerns that the much-feared wage-price spiral is kicking off. However, we remain sanguine about the outlook for pay growth and continue to think that weak wage growth will help inflation to fall …
21st February 2011
We readily admit that we toyed last week with putting a near-term rate rise into our forecast. But, on balance, we are still not quite convinced that a rate rise is now more likely than not. … Near-term rate outlook still finely …
Snow effects are obviously distorting the picture at the moment. But as far as we can tell, the underlying recovery may be struggling a bit. … Post snow bounce-back unlikely to …
18th February 2011
January’s official UK retail sales figures showed that, like the rest of the economy, high street spending bounced back at the start of the year after December’s snowrelated dip. However, the underlying trend looks unspectacular and we still think that a …
February’s Bank of England Inflation Report left the outlook for UK interest rates very finely balanced. But we remain firmly of the view that the markets are currently significantly overstating the likely level of rates over the next couple of years. … …
16th February 2011
The latest UK labour market figures provide further evidence that the jobs recovery has gone into reverse. We continue to think that over the next few years unemployment will climb from its current level of 2.5 million towards 3 million. … UK Labour …
January’s UK consumer prices figures came as something of a relief given the potential for another nasty surprise this month. Although inflation could yet rise further over the next few months, we still expect it to drop back sharply next year. … UK …
15th February 2011
Corporate profits held up remarkably well during the recent economic downturn. But a closer look at the factors that explain this resilience suggests that profits over the next couple of years are unlikely to pick up as sharply as they have done in past …
14th February 2011
The Chancellor is upping the pressure on banks to lend more. But with banks’ funding problems really coming home to roost this year, he might soon feel like he is banging his head against a brick wall. … Funding problems to keep lid on bank …
This week’s Inflation Report will give us a clearer idea of how close a shave last week’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting was. Although the Committee will probably revise down its forecasts for economic growth this year, its forecasts for …
Today’s producer prices figures will add to concerns about the persistence of inflationary pressures. However, we still expect inflation to fall sharply next year. … UK Producer Prices …
11th February 2011
There had been little to suggest that the Committee had altered its view since the last meeting, so the no-change decision today was of little surprise. However, the next meeting – coinciding with May’s Inflation Report – is the key crunch time. We still …
10th February 2011
December’s official industrial production figures suggested that, like the rest of the economy, the manufacturing recovery was blown off course by the bad weather at the end of the year. … UK Industrial Production …
We doubt that the lending commitments announced as part of today’s “Project Merlin” will lead to a significant pick-up in bank lending growth. … Project Merlin no magic fix for bank …
9th February 2011
The deterioration in the UK’s trade position in December primarily reflects temporary factors such as the snow. However, the underlying trend is still pretty dismal. … UK Trade …
The MPC’s reluctance to raise interest rates despite persistently high inflation has led to accusations that it has been inconsistent in its treatment of its inflation target. However, there may be good reasons for the MPC’s “asymmetry”. … Is the MPC …
Perhaps the biggest risk facing the household sector is the possibility of a near-term interest rate rise. We do not think that a modest rate rise would have a disastrous effect on household incomes, although the wider effects of a rate increase could be …
8th February 2011
