Consumer sentiment continued its slow decline in late April due to weakening expectations for future growth, although their views of current economic conditions remained positive.
There seems to be one camp of analysts that thinks the pullback provides a buying opportunity in tech companies that have consistently delivered double-digit revenue growth, while the other side seems to think the decline is warranted based on weakening expectations going forward.
Where we are at the moment, we've seen a strategic gain for the US in weakening the expectations on them.
The rouble is weakening, causing expectations of growth in inflation.
The economy is weakening and expectations that this will reverse later in the year seems to be based as much on wishful thinking as economic evidence.
Expectations weaken potential.
The agency retained a negative outlook on its rating as the "macroeconomic environment could weaken beyond our current expectations".
According to Antonio Villarroya, a rates strategist at Merrill Lynch, while demand for short-term government debt was increasing, the weakening economic outlook and raised expectations of more rate cuts by the European Central Bank meant that demand for long-term debt was weakening.
The broker said: "New industry research from Gartner and further warnings from Nokia and RFMD suggest that the mobile handset market continues to weaken, and that our expectations for smartphone growth are too optimistic.
"We are therefore revising our outlook on the unsolicited long-term ratings on the United Kingdom to negative, from stable, reflecting our view of a one-in-three chance that we could lower the ratings if the U.K.'s economic and fiscal performances weaken beyond our current expectations," the agency added.
"The outlook remains negative, reflecting our view of at least a one-in-three chance that we could lower the ratings if the UK's economic and fiscal performances were to weaken beyond our current expectations," it said.
