{"id":687286,"date":"2010-03-10T05:33:24","date_gmt":"2010-03-10T10:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/uk-manufacturing-in-shock-plunge-2010-3"},"modified":"2010-03-10T05:33:24","modified_gmt":"2010-03-10T10:33:24","slug":"uk-manufacturing-in-shock-plunge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/687286","title":{"rendered":"UK Manufacturing In Shock Plunge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US gets its share of mixed data, leading to furious debates about whether it’s contracting or expanding, but no country it seems as volatile and hard to read right now as the UK. Some think it’s fine; some think it’s the next Iceland.<\/p>\n

The latest bit of data pushes it closer to the latter.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg<\/a>:<\/p>\n

U.K. factory production unexpectedly fell in January for the first time in five months, a sign manufacturing is struggling to shake off the recession.<\/p>\n

Factory output dropped 0.9 percent from December, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. Economists predicted a 0.2 percent increase, according to the median of 26 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. Manufacturing expanded 0.2 percent from a year earlier, the first gain in almost two years.<\/p>\n

We’re certainly not going to give you any bonus points for guessing what the pound is doing today.<\/p>\n

That’s right, it’s puking, as this only ratchets up the great competitive devaluation war, Nothing makes a nation want to print more of its own currency than a drop in factory output.<\/p>\n

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