UK Q1 GDP fall sharpest since 1979

inspector_monkfish

09:30 24Apr09 INSTANT VIEW 1-UK Q1 GDP fall sharpest since 1979

LONDON, April 24 (Reuters) - Britain's economy shrank more
than expected and at its sharpest rate in 30 years in the first
three months of 2009, official data showed on Friday,
suggesting the recession may be deeper than feared.
Finance minister Alistair Darling had been expecting a
similar drop to the 1.6 percent fall seen at the end of last
year, but the deterioration to -1.9 percent suggests downside
risks to his forecast for a 3.5 percent contraction this year.
Separate data showed an unexpected rise in retail sales on
the month in March driven by strength in clothing and food
sales.

************************************************** *****

KEY FIGURES FOR PRELIMINARY Q1 GDP

Q1 09 Q4 08 FCAST
% QQ -1.9 -1.6 (-1.6) -1.5
% YY -4.1 -2.0 (-2.0) -3.8

KEY POINTS
- Biggest quarterly fall in GDP since Q3 1979
- Biggest annual fall in GDP since Q4 1980
- Biggest quarterly fall in manufacturing output since
records began in 1948
- Biggest quarterly fall in total production output since Q1
1974
- Biggest annual fall in total production output since
records began in 1948
- Biggest quarterly fall in business services and finance
output since records began in 1983
- Biggest quarterly fall in services output since Q3 1979-


KEY FIGURES FOR UK RETAIL SALES

MAR FEB F'CAST
% MM 0.3 -2.0 (-1.9 pvs) -0.5
% YY 1.5 0.4 (+0.4 pvs) +1.1

KEY POINTS
- Biggest annual fall in household goods stores sales since
March 1992
- Biggest annual fall in other stores sales since Sept. 2006
- Highest deflator since Sept 2008-

Cannon_Fodder

"Biggest quarterly fall in manufacturing output since records began in 1948"
"Biggest annual fall in total production output since records began in 1948"


Blimey.

Wookster

Yup I can see green shoots.

1.25% growth next year for sure. How could anyone ever doubt this? You'd have to be a muppet.






errrrrrrrr ahemmmmmm

inspector_monkfish

Cannon_Fodder wrote: »

"Biggest quarterly fall in manufacturing output since records began in 1948"
"Biggest annual fall in total production output since records began in 1948"


Blimey.

scarey isn't it !! :eek:

purch

suggesting the recession may be deeper than feared

:eek:......I wouldn't have guessed !!!!

StevieJ

Looks like industry dramatically running down stocks (lack of finance), may be reversed later in the year when things look brighter - Who knows it doesn't neccessarily mean that forward estimates of GDP will be wrong in total - but it may do if the Q1 results are not caused by more severe destocking than anticipated.

Rochdale_Pioneers

Thing we need to look for next is comparitive numbers for other countries. Our Q4 number was similarly nasty when first published, then when put into the context of how everyone else's recessions were going we found out we actually were doing better than so many others.

All these record numbers just emphasise the point about this being global - a homegrown recession caused entirely by government ineptitude (1990 being a classic example) doesn't get dragged down further by elsewhere as they are OK. Would manufacturing be crashing as badly as it is if the UK car industry had a market to sell its 86% exports output to?

Generali

StevieJ wrote: »

Looks like industry dramatically running down stocks (lack of finance), may be reversed later in the year when things look brighter - Who knows it doesn't neccessarily mean that forward estimates of GDP will be wrong in total - but it may do if the Q1 results are not caused by more severe destocking than anticipated.

Lower levels of stock and also falling international trade caused by credit problems should start to ease, temporarily at least.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to credit markets now we're into the proper recession - defaults will start to rise, especially as market interest rates (not the same as base rates obviously) rise with increased Government borrowing.

I guess the risk is that companies are unwilling to increase levels of stocks until it looks like markets are getting better and markets won't improve until companies start to build up inventories.

purch

companies are unwilling to increase levels of stocks until it looks like markets are getting better and markets won't improve until companies start to build up inventories.

And the current Deflationary environment, won't be a huge incentive to do so, either.

StevieJ

The markets appear to have taken the GDP and Budget in their stride uo over 2%.

Graham_Devon

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Thing we need to look for next is comparitive numbers for other countries. Our Q4 number was similarly nasty when first published, then when put into the context of how everyone else's recessions were going we found out we actually were doing better than so many others.

All these record numbers just emphasise the point about this being global - a homegrown recession caused entirely by government ineptitude (1990 being a classic example) doesn't get dragged down further by elsewhere as they are OK. Would manufacturing be crashing as badly as it is if the UK car industry had a market to sell its 86% exports output to?

Come on Rochdale. On other threads you say were one of our own, when describing things you believe in, then you make us all global when something is bad for labour.

As for the 1.9% drop. We all knew it would be over 1.5% if Darling predicted that.

As for the growth next year, it was highlighted on Newsnight last night that that growth INCLUDED QE money. It took them a long time to figure it out, but even the newsnight bloke said basically thats a bit cheeky.