Good for houses,bad for cars

Trying to focus on the economy now and this morning has seen two primary indicators of its state.

Firstly the sale of New Cars continues to fall.Figures for May show a 24 per cent decrease year on year and a thirteenth month of consecutive falls.

This despite the government's launching of the scrappage allowance which came in half way through the month.

Meanwhile on the upside the Halifax is reporting a rise in house prices in the last month.May's figures showed an increase in 2.6 per cent over April with the industry seemingly agreeing that prices may well have bottomed out now following three consecutive monthly falls.

More bad news for the car sector

As the row over whether the government should intervene over Jaguar more dire news for the UK car market which saw saw output fall by 33 per cent in November.

This from Paul Everitt, SMMT chief executive.

The UK motor industry is facing unprecedented challenges and urgent action is now required. The sector has seen falls in demand, extended plant closures and the first signs of redundancies in the supply chain.Without swift action and the ability to access credit and finance, significant damage will be done to the nation’s industrial capability – leaving the UK poorly equipped to take advantage of any global growth when it returns.”

Recession watch

So the bad news keeps rolling on

This morning we have had so far house prices falling 16% year on year,their biggest drop for 25 years.They fell over 2% in November alone.New car sales have fallen 36.8%in November,the biggest monthly drop in 28 years.

Then the news that HM Revenue and Customs is to close more than 90 offices across the UK and cut 3,400 jobs.

We await the interest rate decision at 12.00