Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, including April’s UK GDP report
- UK GDP coming at 7am
The UK hospitality sector will have provided a growth boost in April, says Alvin Tan of RBC Capital Markets.
UK April GDP will be dominated by the reopening of those parts of the economy in April that had been closed (hospitality, non-essential retail, leisure) since January.
High-frequency data suggests that activity picked up swiftly in response. Retail sales jumped 9.2% m/m in April. Card (CHAPS) spending data, which captures broader categories of spending, showed aggregate credit and debit card purchases rising to their February 2020 level by the end of the month, from 80% of that level on average in March, driven mainly by ‘delayable’ spending (e.g. clothing and footwear, vehicles, household goods etc.) and, albeit to a much lesser extent, by ‘social’ spending (e.g. in restaurants and hotels).
Related: England begins reopening as Covid lockdown eases – in pictures
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.
Today we learn how the UK performed in April as parts of the economy reopened as the lockdown was eased.
One of the things we can watch out for today is the GDP of UK which will show us economic strength. So far, we’ve seen an uptrend in GDP. It has shown to be quite steady near the median instead of being erratic like previous months. Let’s see what happens later. pic.twitter.com/bcGDPoPGGI
The main focus today is on the UK economy in the wake of this week’s comments from outgoing Bank of England chief economist Andrew Haldane who said that the economic rebound was going “gangbusters”, and that the Bank of England needs to start looking at turning off the stimulus tap.
This morning’s latest economic data could well add extra fuel to that argument.
During the first quarter the economy contracted -1.5%, however with the further easing of restrictions on April 12th optimism is high that April GDP is likely to see another decent monthly expansion, as Q2 gets off to a flier, with a 2.4% expansion expected, and top of the 2.1% in March. The strong PMI numbers in April further supports this view, with May expected to be equally as strong.
With the further relaxation of restrictions that were announced in April, optimism is rising that the decent performance that we’ve seen in the manufacturing sector over the last three months can be sustained into Q2.
UK economy expected to show an April boost https://t.co/815yYZG5ix #gbp #forex @CMCMarkets
EU #indices point higher as US bond yields fall, despite yesterday’s 5% US #CPI read.
The #markets saw enough one-off factors in the data to believe the Fed’s stance that high inflation is transitory.
Watch for UK #GDP shortly.#FTSE +0.17% #DAX +0.1%
