{"id":2945,"date":"2010-02-26T11:49:15","date_gmt":"2010-02-26T11:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/?p=2945"},"modified":"2025-03-27T15:48:59","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T15:48:59","slug":"uk-gdp-little-reason-for-more-qe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/?p=2945","title":{"rendered":"UK GDP: little reason for more QE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Revised fourth-quarter GDP figures confirm that a recovery is under way while nominal income is growing at a rate consistent with the inflation target, arguing against any further expansion of asset purchases.<\/p>\n<p>Key points:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>GDP rose by 0.3% last quarter versus an originally-estimated 0.1%, with market-sector output up by 0.4%.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Consumer spending rose for the second consecutive quarter, by 0.4%. A further increase in consumer confidence in early 2010, to above its long-run average, suggests a continuing recovery.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A 5.8% fall in business investment was offset by a slower rate of destocking so total spending by companies was down by 0.9%. Improving corporate liquidity should support outlays and hiring in early 2010 &ndash; vacancies rose by 11% over November-January from the prior three months.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>GDP at current market prices rose by 1.1%, or 4.5% at an annualised rate, last quarter. Gross value added at current factor cost &ndash; a measure of aggregate wages and profits &ndash; grew by 6.0% annualised. The 2% inflation target is consistent with nominal income expansion of about 4.5% <em>per annum<\/em> over the medium term.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>GDP finished the quarter strongly: a monthly proxy based on services and industrial output was 0.4% above its quarter average in December &ndash; see chart. This reduces the risk of a first-quarter relapse although January is likely to have been depressed by bad weather.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Today&#8217;s news, however, may not result in a further improvement in Labour&#8217;s poll ratings. Historical analysis indicates that the popularity of the governing party is sensitive to changes in retail price inflation &ndash; a further rise to about 4.5% this spring may outweigh the poll impact of better GDP.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"full-image-block ssNonEditable\"><span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/storage\/graphs\/uk-gdp-260210.gif?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1267186663949\" alt=\"\" \/><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Revised fourth-quarter GDP figures confirm that a recovery is under way while nominal income is growing at a rate consistent with the inflation target, arguing against any further expansion of asset purchases. Key points: GDP rose by 0.3% last quarter versus an originally-estimated 0.1%, with market-sector output up by 0.4%. Consumer spending rose for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-money-moves-markets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5254,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945\/revisions\/5254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}