SOME encouraging figures have been released by the Office for National Statistics. It stated that UK industrial output rose by 0.3 per cent in April, the first increase since February last year. Manufacturing, the backbone of the UK economy, also rose by 0.2 per cent in April.
The figures suggest that the process of destocking is near to completion. Having run down their stocks of finished goods, factories have raised production to sell to customers.
The respected National Institute of Economic and Social Research says it believes output across the economy rose in April and last month.
It argues that March saw the trough of the depression. Clearly, if this continues through this month, the current quarter could return to growth, albeit a very small figure.
Property prices have been rising since March. Those that dismissed the early turnaround as a blip, have had to eat their words, as further increases were announced in April and last month. Mortgage lending rose in April, giving short shrift to those who accuse the banks of not lending.
The partly-nationalised banks have been paying money back to the Treasury, as a show of confidence that the worst may be over.
The proponents of the Vshape recovery will argue that these recent developments strengthen their case. Those who see a W-shape scenario unfolding will stick with that belief for the time being. What seems close to consensus is that the slump in economic output forecast for this year will not be as bad as it looked a month or so ago.
More independent economists are coming around to the view that the much-maligned Chancellor’s forecast of a fall of 3.5 per cent over the whole of this year, with a recovery beginning towards the end of the year, is perfectly feasible.
It is no great surprise then that those in charge of the economy at Cabinet level were desperate to remain in post so they could grab the credit for the recovery, while blaming others for the decline.
It is no coincidence that the stock market has been recovering since March, and has regained more than the fall in the first months of the year, to show an increase on the start of the year. The smart money has obviously been buying at the low or, perhaps more importantly, not selling at the low point in February, or even in March, just as share prices started to pick up.
What is almost laughable are those market commentators who had predicted profit-taking last month. These opinions are coming from people who refused to buy in March and April – so what profits were they thinking could be taken? In my simple mathematics, a profit is only a profit if the sale price exceeds the purchase price.
Simple as.
Investors have been called upon to meet company cash requirements through rights issues and open offers, which they have done. In most cases this has seen financially healthier companies go on to produce some good gains for that additional investment.
News is never good all of the time. The best feature about the scandal of MPs’ expenses was that it took over the headlines from swine flu becoming a pandemic. The worst feature is that swine flu has become a pandemic.
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