Stories versus reality

Daily update

UK second-quarter GDP was stronger than expected. The numbers will of course be subject to revision (and lots of revision), but for the time being this rather confounds the insistent negative narrative. Growth seems to have been focused toward the end of the quarter.
Data quality has become a focus recently, with some people suggesting that private sector sources might offset concerns about the politicization of public data. Private sector modelling in the UK was seized on to suggest an exodus of wealthy people from the UK. Actual data from tax returns disproves that completely—but in the absence of independently created official data, the false narrative might have become established.
US producer price inflation for July is about domestic production, and so does not show the direct consequences of trade taxes. The impact does emerge either with higher costs of imported components being passed down the supply chain, or with US companies taking advantage of foreign competitors being taxed to increase their own prices.
EU industrial production might get a slight flicker of interest, as investors are focused on how manufacturing is responding to disrupted trade patterns. However, this data is (as ever) overshadowed by the earlier releases from national data sources.