UK manufacturing business confidence probably fell

UK month on month CBI Industrial trends survey for July is scheduled to release today.

Recent evidence on the state of the manufacturing sector has not been encouraging. The sector's output fell in both April and May and the surveys show orders weakening significantly with export orders being the main culprit. This week's CBI Industrial trends survey is the expanded quarterly edition which provides more detail on employment and investment trends, amongst other things. The performance of the sector during the second quarter suggests that quarterly manufacturing business confidence has softened which, in turn, may have led to a weakening of investment intentions. 

According to Societe Generale, "In the regular monthly responses, we see no reason to expect any improvement in the output or total orders components. Indeed, with the continuing  appreciation of sterling it is likely that export orders will have fallen further."