020 7898 0500Sterling suffered some losses against the euro and dollar on Friday following Michel Barnier’s comments regarding a post-Brexit transition deal. He said “If these differences persist, a transition is not a given…The sooner the UK makes its choices, the better.” The City did not like that and the pound suffered directly afterwards.
However, it wasn’t all bad as the UK trade deficit figure came in much better than expected. Analysts had forecast that the gap would widen by £2.4 billion in December 2017 but the figure was actually £1.2 billion. Construction output declined by 0.2% year-on-year in December, but it had been expected to fall by 1.4%; manufacturing grew by 1.4% when 1.2% had been forecast; and industrial production dropped by 1.3% when 0.9% was expected.
Meanwhile, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research think tank also announced that the UK economy grew by 0.5% in the three months leading up to January 2018. NIESR said they expect UK GDP to grow by 1.9% in 2018, but it could be much worse should Brexit talks fail. Let us hope not then.
