Continuing our ‘green shoots’ theme, two interesting articles appeared in The Times today. The first cited a number of factors, including increasing activity in the housing sector and noted that the OECD, who last month had revised its forecast for UK GDP downwards, yesterday revealed that that its economic indicators for Britain had actually risen by 0.3 points. Click here for the full article  

In a second related item, focusing on the high street and housing market, postitive signs were also noted, with April year on year high street sales up by 4.6% (the biggest increase for three years). On the housing front, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) noted that average house sales by estate agents rose to 10.6  properties betwwen February and April, up from 9.7 sales in the three montsh previous. For the full article click here

Whilst caveats accompany the above figures and caution still needs to be excercised the signs are increasingly encouraging that the recession may not be a long or a deep as many had previously thought