It wasn’t a great day for UK economic data yesterday, as manufacturing PMI expanded at its slowest pace for eight months, with production increasing at its weakest pace for 11 months. However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom, as new orders increased following a growth in domestic demand and job creation hit its second-strongest mark since mid-2014.
Meanwhile, housing prices fell 0.3% when a 0.2% increase had been expected. Many analysts suggested that a dip in consumer confidence led to the somewhat surprising figures, but there was a concession that high living costs, low wage growth, potential interest rate hikes and Brexit uncertainty are all other contributory factors.
Today we have the construction PMI for February which is expected to increase to 50.7 from 50.2 in January.