- Pound dips back below $1.30 after economic data release
- FTSE 100 inches higher buoyed by banking stocks
- FTSE 350 banks index recoups all of its post-Brexit losses
- UK trade deficit overshoots forecasts in June after imports hit record high
- UK industrial output records strongest quarter since 1999 before Brexit vote
- UK economy shrinks by 0.2pc in July, NIESR finds
Pound flounders below $1.30 at one-month low
The pound tanked to a one-month low today as traders said comments made by the Bank of England's IanMcCafferty hurt the currency. BoE policymaker McCafferty wrote in the Times that more quantitative easing was likely to be required and the central bank rate could be cut further if the post-Brexit economic decline in the UK worsens. It feel by as much as 0.6pc to $1.2962 against the dollar.
UK industrial output records strongest quarter since 1999 before Brexit vote
British industrial output grew at the fastest rate since 1999 in the second quarter of this year, with "very few" respondents reporting an impact from uncertainty around June 23's vote to leave the European Union.
However, official figures showed Britain's trade deficit surged in June, with the economy sucking in a record amount of imports - including from the EU.
Industrial output rose 0.1pc month-on-month in June - in line with economists' forecasts in a Reuters poll - after a 0.6pc drop in May, the Office for National Statistics said today.
But looking at the second quarter as a whole, which gives a better sense of the underlying trend in what is often volatile data, industrial output rose surged by 2.1pc in the three months to June, in line with an estimate in last month's preliminary gross domestic product data. This was the biggest gain for a calendar quarter since the third quarter of 1999.
UK economy suffers 'marked slowdown' in three months to July
The UK economy suffered a “marked slowdown” in the three months to July, when it grew by just 0.3pc, data from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research showed today.
Economic growth of just 0.3pc in this period compares to GDP growth of 0.6pc in the months ended June 30. The latest quarterly forecasts suggests output declined by 0.2pc in July. The NIESR said: "This estimate is consistent with our latest quarterly forecast, which forecasts a contraction of 0.2pc in the third quarter of this year, as a whole.” It also estimates there there is “an evens chance” of a technical recession between the third quarter of 2016 and the end of 2017.
Source : www.telegraph.co.uk/
