Estate agents shares slump after government fees clampdown – business live

On the corporate front, Thomas Cook has said it will pay a dividend for the first time in five years, and said it did not expect the fall in the pound following the Brexit vote to make foreign holidays more expensive. The news has helped push the travel group’s shares up more than 8%. The full story is here:

Meanwhile United Utilities has reported a 1.4% rise in first half profits to £313m, helped by lower infrastructure spending and new pricing regulations.

Political and economic uncertainty around the Brexit vote was less of a drag on economic growth than expected, Bank of England policymaker Kristin Forbes has said in speech at a JP Morgan conference. Reuters reports:

Forbes – who voted against restarting government bond purchases in August – said central banks should not use uncertainty as an excuse to avoid making decisions or for the BoE to change its approach to setting policy.

But she said uncertainty was hard to measure, and may be currently having less of an effect on Britain’s economy.

“The strength of the UK economy during the period of heightened uncertainty before and after the referendum on EU membership suggests that uncertainty is dragging less on growth than has traditionally occurred,” she said.

One reason could be that some factors which typically fed into economists’ measures of uncertainty – such as negative media reports and an unusually wide range of growth forecasts – played less of a role than thought.

Another was that rises in uncertainty typically led to tighter credit conditions, with businesses and consumers finding it harder to borrow money. This had not happened in Britain after June’s referendum.

It is uncertain whether the positive eurozone manufacturing performance will continue, says Paul Sirani, chief market analyst at Xtrade:

Having continued to post weaker than expected figures throughout the first half of 2016, today’s manufacturing numbers add to the brighter picture for the eurozone’s economic conditions in the last six months.

Eurozone manufacturing has remained surprisingly steady since June’s Brexit vote, with many countries showing signs of growth. Whether this can be maintained when the UK finally triggers Article 50 and begins to execute its formal withdrawal is up for debate.

Concerns in the region also linger with German expansion slowing down. Any further grumblings from the economic power house of Europe would spell tough times ahead for ECB president Mario Draghi.

IHS Markit chief business economist Chris Williamson said:

The preliminary PMI results for November indicate the sharpest monthly increase in business activity so far this year, with plenty of signs that growth will continue to accelerate.

The PMI readings so far for the fourth quarter point to GDP expanding 0.4%, led by a rebound in German growth to 0.5%. France is also seen to be enjoying its best spell since the start of the year, with the PMIs signalling GDP growth of 0.2-0.3% in the fourth quarter.

What’s especially encouraging to see is the build- up of uncompleted orders, which showed the largest rise since May 2011. Increasing numbers of firms are boosting capacity as a result of the order book backlog, leading to the joint-largest increase in employment seen this side of the global financial crisis.

ECB policymakers will also be pleased to see inflationary pressures are intensifying steadily. Average prices charged for good and services showed the biggest rise for over five years, albeit with the rate of increase being very modest. However, with indicators such as rising backlogs of work and longer supplier delivery times suggesting demand is exceeding supply, price pressures look set to intensify further in coming months.