Closing post
Time to recap…
The UK’s struggling manufacturing sector recorded its worst month of the year in July, raising fears of a recession in the industrial sector, and beyond.
Factories were hit by higher interest rates and fewer new orders, while weak overseas demand hurt exports. More here.
House prices across the UK have dropped at their fastest rate since 2009, down 3.8% in the year to July.
The UK’s biggest retailers have reported the first monthly fall in shop prices for two years, with food inflation dropping to its lowest level since December.
But…many alcoholic drinks will cost more from Tuesday after Rishi Sunak and the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, enforced tax rises on booze.
In another Brexit climbdown, the UK will retain the EU’s product safety mark indefinitely as the government bowed to pressure from industry and manufacturers.
HSBC more than doubled its profits in the first half of the year, as rising interest rates increased returns for the London-headquartered lender.
BP has angered climate campaigners by reporting profits of $2.6bn (£2bn) for the second quarter of the year as the climate crisis triggers extreme heatwaves around the world.
Greggs is to open more shops in supermarkets and airports, after the bakery chain reported higher sales thanks to strong demand for its evening pizza deals.
Global manufacturing downturn continues as output and new order fall at faster rates
The upshot of today’s manufacturing reports from Asia, Europe and the US is that the global manufacturing sector remained mired in contraction last month.
July saw output at world factories decline further as the downturn in new order intakes was extended to a thirteenth consecutive month.
The JP Morgan Global Manufacturing PMI, which crunches all the latest polls of purchasing managers, was unchanged at 48.7 in July, a level that shows a contraction.
There was a “sharp downturn in the euro area”, the report shows, while Asia showed signs of weakness and international trade flows deteriorated further.
The report says:
The main drag on output was a severe downturn in activity in the euro area, where production contracted to the greatest extent since the height of the global pandemic in spring 2020.
The performances of Austria, Germany and Italy were especially weak.
There were also signs of weakness developing in Asia. Japan, mainland China, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia all saw output contract. North America was a comparative bright spot, with mild growth in Canada and Mexico.
A slight expansion of output in the US represented a stabilisation following June’s marked retrenchment
