Two major manufacturing releases in a day

What a day!

Manufacturing Outlook plus manufacturing PMI.

Last month, PMI plummeted to 51.1 from 53.6 registered in September. This was the worst result since the aftermath of the EU-referendum. Overall, as we are currently seeing in Outlook, manufacturing is trending down and we are currently far away from the peak that was registered at the end of 2017.

Looking at official stats, after two quarters of contraction, q3 saw a small pick-up with a quarterly growth of 0.6%.

Construction recovered since q1, is it going to last?

On Tuesday it will be the turn of construction PMI. After a very difficult start of the year (Carillion collapse and extreme weather conditions), the sector recovered in q2 and particularly in q3 where it grew by 2.1%.

Last month PMI was up to 53.2 from the 52.1 registered in September. The result is positive but not as good as it was in August (55.8).

In our latest Manufacturing Outlook we pointed out how construction suppliers had a good recovery thanks to the construction revival. However, the respondents in these sub-sectors were not too positive about next quarter’s orders, pointing to a slower growth for the sector.

Services far from the balances it used to score

As always, the three PMI days will end with services on Wednesday.

The most recent PMI result suffered a sharp contraction from 53.9 to 52.2 with the largest UK sector still growing, but at a much slower rate than it used to achieve.

In particular, after the great summer which boosted some sub-sectors such as hospitality and food retail, the sector is facing some difficulties, confirmed by the most recent Gfk consumer confidence indicator, which recorded the worst figure of the year at -13.