Will we see more stockpiling or the next phase of the bullwhip effect?
Expectation is for a weaker print of 53.1 in April following the surge up to 55.1 in March, on the back of record stockpiling among G7 nations due to Brexit. That presents a real conundrum for the UK economy once inventories build up as we will move on to the next phase of the bullwhip effect i.e. the counterbalance period.
In such a scenario, that will result in a downswing period so just be wary that we may start to see the beginning of that later today or perhaps even more stockpiling - which risks causing a larger impact in the coming counterbalance period.
As production and the supply chain destabilises due to the wilder fluctuations in demand - since Brexit isn't anywhere close to being resolved - it's going to mess up the UK economic landscape even more, despite this being just the manufacturing sector.
Hence, take that into account when you look at the readings here from now on as this will also feed into UK GDP data as we saw earlier last month here.