Week Ahead Economic Preview: Week of 3 November 2025

The following is an extract from S&P Global Market Intelligence's latest Week Ahead Economic Preview. For the full report, please click on the 'Download Full Report' link.

Worldwide PMI surveys and Bank of England rate decision

Global economic health checks from the manufacturing and services PMI surveys are accompanied by interest rate decisions in the UK, Australia, Brazil, Sweden, Norway and Malaysia.

At the time of writing, the US government shutdown looks set to further deprive markets and policymakers of official economic data releases. Hence, an even brighter spotlight will be cast on private sector economic data, which in the coming week will include not only manufacturing and services PMI from the ISM and S&P Global, but also updates to ADP’s payroll numbers and preliminary November consumer confidence data from the University of Michigan.

While the flash PMI data indicated current strong US growth persisting into October, the surveys also showed business confidence waning in the US amid concerns over the impact of government policy, especially tariffs. The impact of these tariffs will also be assessed on other economies, and weighed against any support to economic growth from other factors. The eurozone flash PMI data in particular showed welcome signs of domestically-driven growth, and firms in mainland China reported improving economic conditions in September thanks to expanding sales to both domestic and non-US customers. However, while other economies such as India, Thailand and Vietnam are also seeing rising manufacturing sales, downturns were reported in many other economies such as Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, Mexico and Canada, often blamed on US tariffs (read our September global manufacturing overview here).

The Bank of England is meanwhile widely expected to hold its policy rate at 4.0%, bringing a halt to the quarterly cadence of rate cuts seen over the past year. Recent policy meetings have seen rate setters split on whether the UK economy needs a rate cut to inject more stimulus to counter lacklustre economic growth and falling employment, or whether caution is needed as inflation (currently at 3.8%) continues to run well ahead of the Bank’s 2% target. Recent PMI data sent mixed signals, showing slow but improving growth accompanied by cooler price pressures. And while consumer confidence has also picked up since the summer, there’s a great deal of uncertainty about the near-term outlook, both for business and households. Most importantly, policymakers are likely to want to see how economic prospects change after the upcoming Budget, in which the government faces the juggling act of supporting economic growth while managing concerns over the deficit.

Bank of England to hold rates steady amid easing bias

Markets are pricing in no rate cut from the Bank of England when its Monetary Policy Committee meets in the coming week, but policymakers are expected to retain an easing bias. Although inflation is running hotter than target at 3.8%, there are signs that the inflationary impact from last year’s Budget is starting to ease (most recently via a fall in the UK flash PMI input price index to an 11-month low). Furthermore, despite signs of business growth picking up in October, the pace of expansion remains sluggish. The upcoming Budget is also widely expected to see the government raise taxes, which has the potential to dampen economic growth further.