On the Mend Further evidence of improvement in our economy as house prices have begun to rise again after an eighteen-month hiatus. Anecdotal evidence of growing confidence in manufacturing and construction is apparent, the latter undoubtedly taking heart from the promise of considerable infrastructure spend by the new government. I suspect this trend will gather pace over the coming months. Across the Channel, things are moving in entirely the opposite direction. [...]
More Clarity Well that didn’t take long. In my last post I suggested the calls for an interest rate cut were premature and that the PMI figures moving into the new year would show a marked increase in confidence following months of pre-election and Article 50 deadline stagnation. On Friday IHS Markit’s PMI (purchasing managers’ index) for January reported a very strong recovery from 49.3 to 52.4, a level last seen [...]
Carney Circus Final Act On 15th March the curtains finally come down on a show that has been running for seven years. The outgoing Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, made much of his legacy of forward guidance in his recent speech. You have to laugh. It wasn’t for nothing that he gained the nickname The Unreliable Boyfriend. Almost every message of guidance he provided throughout his tenancy at [...]
Well that was a quiet five months! Yawn! Very little in the way of subject matter so our move to Dowgate was clearly perfectly timed to take advantage of the massive news void. Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together? OK, maybe not. In truth, so much happened that the opportunities to make myself look a complete fool were almost infinite so perhaps the forced silence was a [...]