David Kern Market Quotations

The slowdown in UK GDP growth is mainly being driven by sharply lower growth in household consumption, as the cooling housing market and the higher personal debt burden dampen spending.

Today's manufacturing output figures were ... worse than the market expected. The sector continues to stagnate and is persistently failing to sustain a recovery. The figures also confirm that the sector was in technical recession in the first half of 2005, ... The manufacturing sector's acute underlying weaknesses reinforce our view that we will need further interest rate cuts later in the year.