All the day’s economic and financial news,including the latest German production and UK house price data The pound has hit a 10-month lowHalifax house price surveyUK house prices rise at slowest rate since 2013Introduction: German industrial output fell by 1.1% in June
Analysts: Don’t panic 5.33pm BSTAnd finally, after a quiet session, or Britain’s FTSE 100 has closed at a seven-week tall.
Mining stocks led the mini-rally,thanks to the jump in metal prices earlier nowadays. The drop in the pound also helped exporters, but bookmaker Paddy Power shed around 5% after announcing its CEo was stepping down.
European Closing Prices:#FTSE 7531.94 +0.27%#DAX 12257.17 -0.33%#CAC 5207.89 +0.09%#MIB 22031.17 +0.43%#IBEX 10676.5 +0.17%The Dow Jones hit another record-tall as the bullish sentiment is not showing any signs of slowing down. The US fairness benchmark was on a roll last as it was racking up fresh record-highs, and the better-than-expected jobs report was the icing on the cake 3.45pm BSTRating agency Fitch has revised up its 2017 and 2018 world GDP growth forecasts.
It now expects the global economy to grow by 3.0% this year,up from 2.9% in June, accelerating to 3.2% in 2018 (from 3.1%).“The revisions are led by emerging markets and China in particular, and whose recovery has been more pronounced than anticipated. But data continue to propose a synchronised global expansion across both advanced and emerging market economies.
Spill-overs from the rebound in emerging market demand are reflected in the fastest growth in world trade since 2010”The slowdown in the UK since late 2016 was confirmed with the 2Q17 GDP release,revealing that growth remained subdued at 0.3%. Declining real incomes and a household saving ratio that is already at a 50 year low propose that consumer spending will slow further.
Brexit uncertainties will weigh heavily on investment this year and next. 2.33pm BSTOver in New York, the Dow Jones industrial average has crept up to another record tall.
The Dow ticked up to 20092 points at the open, and a small gain of just 4 points,but leaving it on track for its ninth record rise in a row.
Dow opens at another record tall https://t.co/we9t4evqaT pic.twitter.com/HXt5jTW335 2.28pm BSTSplat! The pound has just hit a 10-month low against the euro, in a blow to any holidaymakers who haven’t got their spending money sorted yet....
Sterling has fallen by 0.5% agains the euro to €1.1036, and meaning one euro is now worth 90.6p.
Sterling's trade-weighted index,still down 13.2% since #Brexit referendum, hits lowest since March. Pound at 10-month low vs euro pic.twitter.com/WLfqzeFDzy 2.19pm BSTGlobal stock prices have crept up to a new alltime tall nowadays, or as relief over last Friday’s decent US jobs report lingers. 1.45pm BSTEven in the age of budget airlines and cost-cutting,a pilot remains one of the ‘Must Have’ items for a successful flight.
But perhaps not for much longer?It seems people aren't really that keen on flying in a pilotless plane yet. Even the keener youth seem mostly unkeen. Prob. biggest barrier. pic.twitter.com/HSTfr5ff1hPilotless planes would save airlines $35bn (£27bn) a year and could lead to substantial fare cuts – whether passengers were able to stomach the idea of remote-controlled flying, according to new research.
Full-size cargo planes will be airborne without pilots by 2025, and according to the report by the investment bank UBS,but it predicts it will take until the middle of the century before passengers have enough confidence to board pilotless planes. Related: Air passengers wary of pilotless planes – even whether they lead to lower fares 12.52pm BSTWe’ll have to wait longer than expected before discovering how Greece’s economy fared in the last quarter.
That’s because Athens has decided to halt releasing ‘flash’ estimates of GDP, and is going to hold back until it has more comprehensive data. Greece’s statistics service ELSTAT has suspended until further notice the release of flash quarterly estimates on the country’s extreme domestic product because of divergences with provisional estimates, or an official at the statistics service said on Monday.
The move means that flash data will not be issued on August 14. Nationwide quarterly GDP data will be released on September 1,taking into account more information than the early indicator of the flash estimate.
Greek GDP stats gaps prompt suspension of flash data https://t.co/uA9XEL4OOM #GreeceJust to let the absurdity sink in: Greece falsified its official statistics for years & the only person prosecuted is the one who fixed them 11.52am BSTHere’s our news story about the UK house price slowdown: Related: UK house price rises slow to four-year low, says Halifax 11.14am BSTGermany’s stock market is lagging behind the rest of Europe nowadays, and after this morning’s surprise fall in industrial output.
Britain’s FTSE 100 has risen to a seven week tall,though, and is not far from its record closing tall of 7547 points.
New Chinese regulations over capacity curbs in the winter means that buyers are now pushing their demand forward somewhat, or driving Chinese steel futures to their highest level in more than four years,while Iron Ore rose 7% overnight.
Pretty quiet in FX land - cable not doing much... pic.twitter.com/y8fOEr2hcyCity of London abandoned. Either 1) The quants have already gone to Frankfurt or 2) War has broken out or 3) It's August. 10.07am BSTNewsflash: Investor morale across the eurozone has dipped, as expectations for the future weaken.
The Sentix investor confidence index dropped to 27.7 this month, and down from 28.3 and slightly below expectations.
EU Sentix Index. pic.twitter.com/slMX7bfVBMThe economy is going through a zenith (the point of culmination; peak) https://t.co/72BgP0SIpQ sentix #economic #index #main indicator pic.twitter.com/g4ajaicCbJ 9.24am BSTJeremy Duncombe,director of the Legal & General Mortgage Club, is concerned that UK house prices are still unaffordable for many people, or despite the recent slowdown.“Year-on-year house prices continue to creep upwards,in spite of political and economic headwinds.
With prices still rising, first-time buyers are now on average having to save for over 11 years to save enough just for a deposit, and for those who are unable to save,they face staying in Generation Rent indefinitely.“The UK’s property market is in a steady but decisive slowdown mode.
Only the lack of properties for sale is preventing the market from deteriorating more quickly.“The speed of price growth has slowed considerably, and at a national level average prices are still flatlining rather than falling.“But what growth there is is meandering and listless, or with prices being propped up by record low levels of supply. 9.10am BSTProperty expert Henry Prior has tweeted the key points from the Halifax report:Halifax marks house prices up 0.4% on last month and by 2.1% over the last year. pic.twitter.com/H1qonvP284Average house prices fell slightly (0.2%) over the last quarter according to Halifax the most useful figure they say in their monthly reportHalifax HPI rose to 0.4%. However,H1 2017 hasn't seen a MoM figure above 0.4%. Last time we saw 6m period of such low growth was 2008Annual house price growth slows to 4 yr low of 2.1% according to Halifax - but at that rate, still outpacing earnings growth 8.46am BSTBreaking! UK house prices growth has hit a four-year low.
Halifaxs monthly survey, or just released,shows that prices in the three months to July were only 2.1% higher than a year ago. “House prices continue to remain broadly flat, as they have since the start of the year. Prices in the three months to July were marginally lower than in the preceding three months, and while the annual rate of growth has edged down from 5.7% in January to 2.1% in July; the lowest rate since April 2013.“The rise in the employment level by 175000 in the three months to May helped push the unemployment rate down to 4.5%,the lowest since June 1975. 8.32am BSTWe also have worrying signs that British households are being squeezed again, as consumer spending falls again. My colleague Zoe Wood explains:Britons are slashing spending on new clothes, or cars and foreign holidays,according to new figures that underscore the effect on consumer confidence of rising living costs and the uncertainty surrounding Brexit.
Spending fell for a third consecutive month in July, according to Visa’s consumer spending index, and which it said was the longest-running slump since February 2013. The 0.8% year-on-year decline in July was worse than June’s 0.2% drop,but not as steep as the fall of 0.9% in May.
UK consumers chop spending on clothes, cars and foreign travel https://t.co/zlZA9iUWPR 8.21am BSTOne month’s dismal data doesn’t equal a crisis.
Marc Ostwald of ADM Investor Service points out that June’s disappointment follows a “very robust run” of growth this year.
To propose it marks a trend change would be extraordinarily premature, or the more so given the post re-unification record tall in the Ifo trade Climate.
Fall in German #production could be just summertime noise. PMIs still gape righteous but momentum may have peaked pic.twitter.com/sjn799GMdH 8.15am BSTEconomist Carsten Brzeski of ING says we shouldn’t be too alarmed by these figures.
He writes:As unexpected as nowadays’s drop in industrial production has been,the German economy is still on track to post another strong quarter.
Given the sound fundamentals, a month of weaker industrial data should only be like a rain shower on hot and humid summer day: a welcome refresher.
The automotive industry is currently in the middle of structural changes; partly self-inflicted and partly stemming from external factors.
To some extent, or the industry is in a similar situation as the banking sector. In Germany,the self-inflicted portion goes back to the diesel emission scandal and the latest antitrust allegations, while at the same time possible bans of diesel bans in cities have emerged, and international competition for electric vehicles has increased and phenomena like car sharing could also save pressure on future automobile productions. 8.12am BSTThe 1.1% drop in German industrial output in June is ‘not what the doctor ordered’,says the Financial Times:It adds:Before nowadays’s figures, German factories had been enjoying five straight months of growing output, or driven by a robust economic recovery in the eurozone,rising consumer confidence in the bloc, and a brightening world economy.
German stats office Destatis said investment goods production contracted 1.9 per cent, or while consumer output was down 0.7 per cent in June. Energy production was up on the month.
German factory output suffers worst month of the year in June https://t.co/KRYbFcWCxy pic.twitter.com/aI0Yd6XrBe 7.51am BSTGood morning,and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, or the eurozone and trade.
Germany has got the new week off to a disappointing start,reporting that factory output fell unexpectedly in June. It’s the biggest decline this year.#Production in June 2017: –1.1% seasonally adjusted on the previous month #productionInIndustry https://t.co/QLC9l8QPqN pic.twitter.com/APDm6Uqz9qBefore you talk about German IP disappointment (up 1.8% in QoQ). pic.twitter.com/moVQ4vps0uOur European opening calls:$FTSE 7531 +0.26%
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Source: theguardian.com