020 7898 0500Following comments made by the CEO of Jaguar Land Rover last week, on Friday, the CEO of Airbus gave a talk in which he heavily criticised Theresa May’s administration for what he sees as their inability to properly execute Brexit without causing severe harm. The talk happened as May was at Chequers with ministers, trying to thrash out the impossible: a Brexit deal that is accepted by the EU, whilst simultaneously pleasing, remainers, soft Brexiteers and hard Brexiteers.
Sterling managed to make some gains against the dollar, although last week’s trading was within a pretty tight range. The question is when will the next big move come and, when it does, in which direction will it be? It would not be a surprise to see some significant sterling weakness if the UK heads towards a Brexit deal that takes us out of the single market, but it is known that May would prefer to have access. Whether that proves possible is currently anybody’s guess.
The Halifax house price index showed an increase of 1.8% year-on-year in the three months to June 2018 which was in line with expectations. There was some disappointment as labour productivity in the first quarter of 2018 shrank by 0.4%. The release is particularly worrying, because when productivity increases, we tend to see a greater increase in pay but, with wages growing at a pitiful rate since the financial crisis, the loss of productivity could exacerbate the problem.
There are no economic data releases from the UK today, but we could well see some further Brexit-related news throughout the week.
