By CountingPips.com
The United Kingdom Gross Domestic Product fell by more than expected in the second quarter and marked the fifth straight quarterly decline according to a report by the Office of National Statistics. The U.K. GDP data showed that quarterly GDP fell by 0.8 percent in the April through June quarter following a decline of 2.4 percent in 
the first quarter of 2009. The first quarter decline had marked the largest decrease since the 2.6 percent fall in the second quarter of 1958. The second quarter GDP decline surpassed economic forecasts that were expecting a 0.3 percent contraction.
On an annual basis, the second quarter GDP fell by 5.6 percent from the level of the second quarter of 2008 and marked the largest annual decline since 1955 when records were first kept. The 2009 first quarter had registered an annual decline of 4.9 percent.
Contributing to the decline in GDP was a decrease in total production output by 0.7 percent. Despite this decrease, the production output was significantly better than the 5.1 percent decrease of the first quarter. Also contributing to the second quarter’s GDP fall was a construction output decrease by 2.2 percent while services output fell by 0.6 percent and manufacturing declined by 0.3 percent.
The Pound Sterling falls in Forex Trade.
The pound sterling has been losing ground to the other major currencies today in the forex market after the GDP numbers. The British currency has fallen to the euro, US dollar, Swiss franc and Canadian dollar while trading virtually unchanged against the Japanese yen.
The euro has increased against the pound as the EUR/GBP currency pair has advanced from 0.8589 at the open of today’s trading to 0.8652 in the afternoon of the U.S. trading session at 1:49pm according to currency data from Oanda.
The pound has fallen verses the dollar as the GBP/USD pair has gone from opening at 1.6486 to trading at 1.6452 and reached an intraday low at 1.6391.
The pound is trading about unchanged versus the Japanese yen as the GBP/JPY trades at 156.00 yen per pound. Elsewhere, the pound has also fallen against the Swiss franc as the GBP/CHF has fallen from 1.7708 to trading at 1.7589 francs per pound this afternoon.
EUR/GBP Chart – The euro has jumped against the pound sterling today in forex trading after the UK 2nd quarter GDP growth came in lower than expectations. The EUR/GBP traded back above the 100-hour moving average in red (1Hour Chart).
