Chief Economist, Heteronomics

Phil Rush

Philip Rush is the Founder and Chief Economist of Heteronomics. Until launching in November 2016, he was Nomura's Senior European Economist and was the Chief UK Economist there since 2010. Before that, he was UK Economist at Barclays Wealth, where he also developed strategic asset allocation models for their market return portfolios. Philip started his career at Lehman Brothers covering the UK, Scandinavian and Swiss economies. A book on his fundamental framework was published in January 2018 as "Real Market Economics".

Chief Economist

UK: Dec-19 Sales Smashed by Statisticians

UK: Jan-20 Sales Surge Starts to Fix Stats Mess

UK: Consumers Spending Salary but Losing PPI

UK: Retail Sales Resilient with Real Wages in 3Q19

UK: Retail Sales Not Damped by Jun-19 Rains

Heteronomics

Heteronomics represents a different kind of economics. We believe analysis should delve into the details of what is really going on, rather than using overly simplistic assumptions to quick-sell stories. Independence from myopic institutional pressures allows us to focus on the realities underlying your asset allocation decisions, without the conflicts of the old market structures. Heteronomics targets the themes driving UK asset prices, offering the benefits of depth, independence and ultimately price.

UK-centric macro research

Macroeconomics

<ul>
<li><em>The ONS reports a 0.6% m-o-m decline in UK retail sales for “November”, but that does not include sales on Black Friday or the preceding week. The roughly 2pp adjustment for this coverage gap appears to be insufficient.</em></li>
<li><em>Non-seasonally adjusted sales were in line with the norm before Black Friday became an event in the UK. Sales used to be 5-10pp stronger in Decembers, and a similar rebound is likely in 2019, with some of that hitting the headline data.</em></li>
</ul>


The ONS reports a 0.6% m-o-m decline in UK retail sales for “November”, but that does not include sales on Black Friday or the preceding week. The roughly 2pp adjustment for this coverage gap appears to be insufficient.
Non-seasonally adjusted sales were in line with the norm before Black Friday became an event in the UK. Sales used to be 5-10pp stronger in Decembers, and a similar rebound is likely in 2019, with some of that hitting the headline data.


UK: Bullish Black Friday Effect Hitting Dec-19