{"id":3261,"date":"2025-10-17T10:08:03","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T10:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/2025\/10\/17\/sterling-steadies-as-august-gdp-confirms-the-u-k-avoided-a-contraction\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T10:08:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T10:08:03","slug":"sterling-steadies-as-august-gdp-confirms-the-u-k-avoided-a-contraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/2025\/10\/17\/sterling-steadies-as-august-gdp-confirms-the-u-k-avoided-a-contraction\/","title":{"rendered":"Sterling Steadies as August GDP Confirms the U.K. Avoided a Contraction"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<p>The UK\u2019s economic activity expanded by 0.1% month-on-month in August 2025, reversing a revised 0.1% contraction in July, as production output offset weakness in other sectors of the economy.<\/p>\n<h2>Key Points from the August GDP Report<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li> <strong>Monthly GDP<\/strong> <strong>grew 0.1%<\/strong>, in line with consensus expectations, following a downwardly revised -0.1% decline in July (previously reported as flat)<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Production sector led the expansion<\/strong> with a 0.4% increase, while services was unchanged at 0.4%, and construction fell by 0.3%<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Three-month rolling GDP<\/strong> <strong>growth accelerated to 0.3%<\/strong> (June-August) from 0.2% in the three months to July, suggesting modest underlying momentum<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Annual GDP growth eased to 1.3%<\/strong> from 1.5% in July, indicating some loss of momentum on a year-over-year basis<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Services remained a main growth driver<\/strong> over the three-month period, expanding 0.4%, with construction adding 0.3% while production fell 0.3%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Link to the August 2025 ONS GDP Monthly Estimate<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The mixed sectoral performance highlighted the uneven nature of the U.K.\u2019s economic recovery.<\/p>\n<p>While the headline figure met expectations, the flat services reading was concerning, given that the sector accounts for roughly 80% of the U.K. economy. The downward revision to July\u2019s data also suggested the economy had less momentum entering the third quarter than initially thought.<\/p>\n<h2>Market Reactions<\/h2>\n<p><strong>British pound vs. Major Currencies: 5-min<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The pound, which had been taking cues from countercurrencies, dipped across the board when the report hit, though losses were shallow. It fell the most against the stronger Aussie, but mostly stayed within 0.10% an hour after the release. Thirty minutes later, the move faded, and the currency started climbing again.<\/p>\n<p>Easing political jitters in France and renewed focus on a possible Fed rate cut boosted risk appetite in Europe, giving GBP a lift before the US session pulled it in different directions.<\/p>\n<p>The European session\u2019s gains also suggest that markets had positioned for potentially weaker data, making the in-line reading a relief. Additionally, the fact that the economy returned to growth after July\u2019s contraction helped ease immediate recession fears, even though the underlying picture remained mixed.<\/p>\n<p>By the end of the day, the pound finished mixed, trading lower against the euro, franc, and yen, but stronger versus the dollar and commodity currencies like the Aussie, Kiwi, and Loonie.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UK\u2019s economic activity expanded by 0.1% month-on-month in August 2025, reversing a revised 0.1% contraction in July, as production output offset weakness in other sectors of the economy. Key Points from the August GDP Report Monthly GDP grew 0.1%, in line with consensus expectations, following a downwardly revised -0.1% decline in July (previously reported<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/3261-GBP-1-780x380.png",780,380,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/3261-GBP-1-780x380-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/3261-GBP-1-780x380-300x146.png",300,146,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/3261-GBP-1-780x380-768x374.png",640,312,true],"large":["https:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/3261-GBP-1-780x380.png",640,312,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/3261-GBP-1-780x380.png",780,380,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/3261-GBP-1-780x380.png",780,380,false],"morenews-featured":["https:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/3261-GBP-1-780x380.png",780,380,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/3261-GBP-1-780x380.png",780,380,false],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/3261-GBP-1-780x380-590x380.png",590,380,true],"crawlomatic_preview_image":["https:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/3261-GBP-1-780x380-260x127.png",260,127,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"henry","author_link":"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/author\/henry\/"},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/category\/latest-news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Latest News<\/a>","tag_info":"Latest News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}