Ho Ho...Oh No!
14 / Dec / 2008
There was very little data released last week giving us some rest bite from the doom and gloom of negative figures. The Government released their spin on the UK housing market and reported house prices fell 2.5% in October. Prices were 7.4% lower than last year at £203,539 compared with a 5.1% annual fall in September. Manufacturing Output posted the worst figure since March 2005 giving a month on month decrease of 1.4% giving a year on year change of –4.9% compared to Septembers 3.1%. Current conditions with a weak Pound should help the exporters and make our goods more attractive to buy but on the other hand the cost of importing raw materials has increased significantly.
The run up to Christmas provides us with a heavy week of UK data. Tomorrow is the UK Consumer Price Figures. The forecast is for a decrease in inflation levels to 3.9% from the previous months 4.5%. The expectation is that the rate will fall below the government target of 2.00% sometime next year. On Wednesday it’s the turn of the ILO Claimant count. These figures are bound to make worrying reading especially as some of our top retail stores are either closing or struggling. The claimant count is expected to increase to 45,000 compared to 36,500 the previous month. The ILO jobless rate again is expected to increase to 6% compared to a previous month’s 5.8%. Following on from this on Thursday is retail sales volumes. The figure is expected to show a month on month decline of 0.6% from a previous figure of –0.1% although in light of heavy discounts by the major stores this could prove to show a slightly better than expected figure. Sandwiched between these is the results of this months MPC meeting which no doubt will show a unanimous vote of 9 – 0 in favour of a 1% cut.
That’s it for another year; it just leaves us to wish you all a very merry Christmas and happy New Year. The next bulletin will be published on 12/01/2009.