Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news Digging into today’s GDP report a little, we can see that the UK services sector had a decent July, with growth in 11 of its 14 subsectors. According to the ONS, the fastest growth was recorded in: professional, scientific and technical activities (up 2.1%), driven by growths in scientific research and development (up 7.0%), legal activities (up 3.1%), and advertising and market research (up 3.4%) information and communication (up 2.5%), which was mainly driven by a growth of 4.4% in computer programming, consultancy and related activities administrative and support service activities (up 1.3%), driven by growths of 6.1% in rental and leasing activities, and of 2.8% in services to buildings and landscape activities “The 0.4% rise in U.K. GDP in the second quarter was slightly stronger than we expected and suggests the economy has remained resilient to the surge in energy prices. Adding to the positive news, growth was driven by solid gains in household consumption and business investment, and included a healthy 0.3% monthly rise in output in June, suggesting momentum was sustained as the quarter progressed. Continue reading...