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Lacklustre UK services PMI points to flat second quarter growth
At 50.2, the latest UK services PMI indicates that the sector barely grew in June. This completes a fairly woeful set of PMI releases, following a particularly weak construction reading earlier in the week. First and foremost, this emphasises that second-quarter growth is likely to come in more-or-less flat. Admittedly most of the drag is likely to come from production, which has fallen back in the aftermath of a stockpiling frenzy earlier in the year. But once the noise surrounding inventories begins to fade, the fact that new orders have ground to a halt in the service sector suggests that underlying economic ... (full story)