Biggest UK Recession on Record Confirmed

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has reported the UK is now in its largest recession on record, after figures released on Wednesday 12^th August 2020 showed that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the second quarter had a record 20.4% fall in economic activity.

The ONS said “The coronavirus pandemic reflected the fall in GDP due to ongoing health restrictions and voluntary social distancing that had to be put in place.

April was reported as the biggest monthly drop on record and widespread decline across services, production and construction industries.

Comment

There are no suprises with these figures and markets took them in their stride.  This was expected.  The bounding ball of markets from now on are diretly linked to Central Bank and Government stimulus, US economic activity (also down) and of course vaccine testing and then a working vaccine that can be distributed to billions of people across the globe.