U.K. CBI Industrial Trends survey shows continuous fall in business optimism

The U.K. CBI Industrial Trends survey underlined the damage Brexit uncertainty is doing to the U.K. economy, noted Daiwa Capital Market Research in a report. Today’s survey showed that business optimism continued to fall in the three months to January, with a 23 percent net balance of survey respondents, up from 16 percent three months ago, reporting a fall.

New orders seem to have steadied, having the previous quarter reported the first decline in two-and-a-half years. However, companies reportedly continue to scale down their investment plans and spending on product innovation and staff training has also been lowered because of increased uncertainty.

Meanwhile, output growth reportedly stayed satisfactory, but that appears likely at least partially to reflect inventory accumulation against the possibility of a no-deal Brexit.

“Looking ahead, little seems likely to change over the near term, in particular if no solution to the current political impasse is found soon”, added Daiwa Capital Market Research.

At 19:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of British Pound was highly bullish at 127.633, while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was neutral at -3.6587 more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex