Just Ahead of the November Budget, the Markets Have It...

The latest UK data for GDP in September painted a sorry picture. Services activity dropped significantly and output across the economy suffered leading to an 0.6% drop in GDP and a drop of 0.2% in the third quarter . Yes, as we had all anticipated , an extra bank holiday for the Queen’s funeral was always going to affect September figures . But what we are seeing is a worrying trend with manufacturing in the quarter down by 2.3%, with every sub-sector within it in falling, something not seen, as the ONS reminded us, for 40 years. Interestingly, in contrast, GDP grew by 0.2% in the Eurozone and the EU as a whole in the third quarter and there was positive activity was positive in all the larger countries in the EU such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain[i]