UK consumer confidence slips on cloudier outlook - GfK
LONDON (Reuters) - British consumer morale edged down from a recent nine-year high this month as households became slightly less upbeat about the outlook for the economy and their personal finances, a survey from researchers GfK showed on Tuesday.
GfK's headline consumer confidence index fell slightly more than expected to -1 in September from August's reading of +1, which was the same as June's nine-year high.
Nick Moon, GfK's managing director for social research, said the index was likely to continue to hover around this level, in part because strong economic data was not translating into improved living standards as wage growth remains weak.
"Many people are not themselves feeling any better off despite the growth in GDP, and this may be tempering the impact of positive media coverage of the economy," he said.
September's decline in the index was driven by a fall in four of the index's five main components, with the biggest drops coming in household expectations for their personal finances and the general economy over the next 12 months.
The Bank of England forecasts that Britain's economy will grow by 3.5 percent this year, which would be its best rate of growth in around a decade, given recent downward revisions to growth in the run-up to the financial crisis.
The Office for National Statistics is scheduled to publish further wide-ranging revisions to British economic output since the start of 2013 at 0830 GMT (9:30 a.m. BST)
(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
