Today’s Manufacturing PMI from S&P Global shows that manufacturing production has fallen for the first time in six months. Build it and they will – oh wait…
“The seasonally adjusted S&P Global UK Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index posted 51.0 in March, down from 51.7 in February and below the flash estimate of 51.4. The PMI has remained above the neutral 50.0 mark for five successive months.”
General uncertainty, Iran, and lower levels of confidence in the year ahead are all blamed for that. Business optimism for production has fallen to its lowest level since September last year, S&P’s Future Output Index suffered the steepest one-month fall in a year. Blamed also was “ongoing uncertainty about domestic government policy.” Small manufacturers have the least positive outlook as production sectors all clock decreased sentiment. Here’s an idea for Reeves: cancel the Employment Rights Act, reverse the last two Budgets of tax hikes and public sector pay deals, and take a long holiday…
Huge!
It is April 1st after all…
A well-timed update from the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee has stated today that the Iran war is making the UK gilt market particularly vulnerable. In addition to the dim view bond traders take of the Reeves rollercoaster…
The committee says the war in general represents a “substantial negative supply shock” to the global economy: “The conflict has made the global environment materially more unpredictable and followed a period in which global risks were already elevated. This increases the possibility of large, frequent and potentially overlapping shocks and periods of intense volatility.” In case you supposed otherwise…
It went further to note that the most leveraged hedge funds in UK gilts also hold large positions in US Treasuries and European government bonds in high-risk concentrations: “Cross-market positions, in addition to firms pursuing similar strategies, increased the risk of disorderly unwinds causing jumps to illiquidity in core UK markets, including through cross-border spillovers.” The BoE also warns of large gilt selloffs as share prices drop…
Buried at the end the committee says it wants to reduce its legally required minimum meetings from four to three per year. Feeling gilty…
Donald Trump has made his strongest comments yet against NATO just as Starmer prepares to give an address from Downing Street. The President has spoken to the Telegraph in another round of interviews before he addresses the nation at 2 a.m. BST…
Asked if the US’ membership of NATO would be reconsidered, he said: “Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration… I was never swayed by Nato. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.”
Trump said he is aggrieved by allied refusal to enter the Strait of Hormuz: “We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine. Ukraine wasn’t our problem. It was a test, and we were there for them, and we would always have been there for them. They weren’t there for us.”
He attacked Starmer personally: “You don’t even have a navy. You’re too old and had aircraft carriers that didn’t work… I’m not going to tell [Starmer] what to do. He can do whatever he wants. It doesn’t matter. All Starmer wants is costly windmills that are driving your energy prices through the roof.”
Trump says the US will exit in between two and three weeks’ time. European allies’ decision to adopt a crouched trembling position has resulted in the President’s substantial anger…
Reeves has teed up the day by distributing what information currently exists on the government’s financial support plans to the BBC. In a pre-recorded interview she said…
Starmer has a press conference at 10 a.m. Expect more questions to not be answered there…
Speaking to Sky News off the back of Rachel Reeves’ Air Passenger Duty hike, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said:
“Labour is dependent on those Red Wall seats, and yet every move she makes poisons economic growth and damages the UK’s recovery… it’s the Chancellor who stumbles from policy misstep to policy misstep… I think her policy decisions are incredibly stupid.”