Greg posted during the US session on the data dump coming from the UK on Thursday

previews:

UK Trade Balance

Barclays:

  • We expect the trade balance to improve marginally at -2.9 after -£3.1bn as goods imports slow and exports continue to be supported by weaker currency.

HSBC:

  • Trade volume growth appears to be moving in the right direction, with exports up 3.8% 3m/3m in May 2017, and imports growing more slowly at 2.8%. And the surveys back up anecdotal evidence that UK exports are responding to sterling weakness. However, so far, this has done little to reduce the trade deficit in absolute terms. We expect another relatively hefty deficit in June.

Lloyds:

  • Trade flows can be very volatile from month to month. But with recent data suggesting export orders are at last responding to the competiveness boost provided by sterling's slide, there are hopes that net exports will help boost GDP growth in the second half of this year. And the British Retail Consortium will provide an unofficial update of July retail sales.

UK Industrial Production

Barclays:

  • We expect Industrial production to come in largely unchanged from previous months as lower manufacturing could be balanced by stronger utilities. Manufacturing woes reflect a fall in vehicle production in June as well as softer global activity index. If realised, Q2 production would be 0.5% lower than in Q1, in line with preliminary GDP estimates.

Lloyds:

  • June industrial production and construction output (both Thu) will be watched for any indications that Q2 GDP growth, originally estimated at 0.3%, may be revised. The ONS made an initial guess that industrial production rose by 0.1% in June. We think that may underestimate the strength of manufacturing output, and possibly more significantly reports suggest that oil output was much stronger. While this gain may be partially offset by a fall in construction activity it still points to a risk of an upward revision to GDP growth to 0.4%.

HSBC:

  • Trade volume growth appears to be moving in the right direction, with exports up 3.8% 3m/3m in May 2017, and imports growing more slowly at 2.8%. And the surveys back up anecdotal evidence that UK exports are responding to sterling weakness. However, so far, this has done little to reduce the trade deficit in absolute terms. We expect another relatively hefty deficit in June. Construction had a weak start to the second quarter, falling by over 1% in both April and May. However, the ONS pencilled in a 1.8% m-o-m bounce in June for its preliminary Q2 GDP estimate, which we expect to be broadly confirmed in this release.

RBC:

  • In a quiet data week for the UK, the main release will be the June reports on industrial production and construction output. These numbers will inform expectations about the potential for revisions to the initial estimate of Q2 GDP growth, which came in at 0.3% q/q. It was implicit in the estimate for GDP growth that IP grew at 0.1% m/m and construction output expanded by 1.8% m/m. Therefore, any material deviations from those numbers would introduce the likelihood of a revision to the overall economic growth estimate on 24 August.