Economics
SocGen: Based on News Flow Alone, the U.K. Economy Has Further to Fall
Here's one ominous indicator.
A vendor holds out copies of the Manchester Evening News newspaper at the Town Hall in Manchester, U.K.
Photographer: Simon Dawson/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
It's bad news for the U.K. economy. Literally.
A newsflow index compiled by Societe Generale SA which tallies a weekly count of the number of print stories "dealing with economic strength" as a percentage of all newspaper articles is now in "free fall." In fact, the French bank's U.K. proprietary news flow indicator is plunging at a faster rate than a gauge of the private sector economy released last week. The Composite PMI published by Markit Economics shrunk to 47.7 — a level not seen for seven years and a number that sits well below the 50 figure that divides economic expansion from contraction.