020 7898 0500Yesterday, the Confederation for British Industry reported that new orders at UK factories fell at the fastest pace in three years in the last quarter. Companies are more
pessimistic about their prospects, particularly their chances of selling goods abroad. The business optimism index found that 10% of firms were more optimistic than they were
three months ago, with 25% less optimistic. That gives us a grand total of -16, which is the sharpest decline since July 2016.
No 10 felt moved to deny that a cabinet row had taken place during discussions about the Brexit backstop. Ministers reportedly told Theresa May that she had to ensure that any
backstop arrangements put in place were not indefinite. It still remains to be seen whether parliament will agree to whatever is proposed, but the President of the EU Council,
Donald Tusk, said that it was possible an emergency summit to finalise a Brexit deal could be held.
Today we have the UK finance mortgage approvals for September, which are expected to remain about the same as last month, at 39,000. So many forecasts have been wide of the
mark recently though, that it wouldn’t be a surprise to see it come in different to that.
