Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, including the UK GDP report for OctoberSanjay Raja, UK economist for Deutsche Bank, expects this morning’s GDP report (due at 7am) will show output flatlined in October, after a surprise jump of 0.2% in September.Raja says:How will GDP breakdown in October? We see both services and industrial production coming in flat (0% m-o-m). Construction output, however, we think will shrink – albeit marginally. Risks to our forecast are skewed marginally to the downside.We expect Q4-23 GDP to edge up by 0.1% q-o-q. The bad news? Recession clouds remain, with around half the Bank of England’s rate hikes yet to feed through into the real economy. There is some good news emerging, however. Recession clouds are starting to clear away with recent survey data turning markedly less pessimistic.We continue to think that the UK economy will avoid a recession next year, instead growing by 0.3% in 2024. But sluggish growth is here to stay. We see the economy growing by only 0.1% in H1-24, before picking up steam in H2-24 and beyond.With the UK having just about avoided a contraction in Q3 some of the more recent economic data as we head into Q4 has shown a modest improvement, raising the prospect that the UK economy might avoid a recession at the end of this year.When you consider that a year ago both the IMF and the Bank of England were predicting a long recession that is no small feat. Continue reading...