UK GDP (Q2, 1st release) – 09:30 BST/ 04:30 EST
A run of soft data during recent weeks has raised question marks over whether the UK economy maintained any sort of growth at all during the second quarter of 2011. Even though forecasts for Q2 were always relatively modest, it now appears that growth will fall short of even those expectations with some speculation that a modest contraction could even be seen. However a large proportion of the recent weak data, particularly April’s service sector figures,
has stemmed from the additional royal wedding bank holiday. Assuming that activity in the service sector recovers most of April’s lost ground in May, and then grows modestly in line with recent survey evidence during June, it will still make a slight positive contribution to Q2 GDP and offset weakness in the industrial sector. Therefore, we see very marginal growth of 0.1% q-o-q, 0.7% y-o-y.
Q1 final release Median Forecast
Quarter 0.5% 0.1% 0.1%
Year 1.6% 0.7% 0.7%
Click here to read the full report:
http://www.easyforexnews.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/303679.pdf
HSBC Global Research