View: Economic weakness more of a risk for GBP than Gilts, like duration
The timing of Nigel Lawson’s observation that George Osborne should relinquish his role as chief Conservative chief party strategist to focus on the more important role of Chancellor has proved to be rather well timed with this morning’s first look at Q2 GDP showing the UK economy shrank at a dire -0.7% q/q rate, well below the median forecast of -0.3% q/q, leaving y/y growth at -0.8%. Ouch. The market was quick to seize on the positives, citing the Jubilee effect which most seem to think knocked 0.5% of the quarterly growth reading not to mention the rain which lasted a lot longer than that extended weekend. But this doesn’t alter the fact that the reading missed the median guess (who knew about the bank holiday and might have also looked out of the window at some point in Q2) by a significant margin and leaves us with three consecutive quarters of contraction in this double dip.
Full report below…
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