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Friday, October 30, 1998 Published at 19:02 GMT

Business: Business Diary

November 15 - 21

Company results in italic
Interim (half-year) results = (I)
Final (full year results) = (F)

Nov 16

British Steel

Nov 17

UK Retail Prices Index (Oct)
UK Public Sector Finances (Oct)
US Consumer Prices (Oct)
US Real Earnings (Oct)

Nov 18

UK Retail Sales (Oct)
UK Minutes of Mon Pol Cttee of 4 & 5 Nov
US Trade Balance (Sep)

Nov 19

UK MO (Final) Oct
UK M4 (Prov) Oct
UK Building Society Lending (Oct)
UK Bank Lending (Oct)
UK Business Investment (Prov) Q3
UK New Car Production (Oct)
SMMT
US Housing Starts (Oct)
GER Bundesbank meets
Glenmorangie
Storehouse

Nov 20

UK Output, Income & Expenditure (Q3)
UK Consumer Confidence (Nov)
EU/GFK

All Government and Bank of England figures are released at 0930.

German and Japanese figures expected this week:

GER Trade Balance (Sep)

JAP Tokyo Dept Store Sales (Oct)

The Headline rate of inflation fell last month from 3.3%pa to 3.2%pa, because of lower housing and motoring costs.
The Underlying rate, which excludes mortgage interest payments, remained at 2.5%pa, the Government's target figure. Core inflation fell to 2.0%pa from 2.1%pa.

Retail Sales fell last month by 0.4%, but were 3.7% up in volume over the year.

The economy grew by 0.5% in the third quarter of this year, according to last month's preliminary estimate of GDP, but that figure may be revised in the Output, Income and Expenditure data for Q3 released on Friday. GDP was estimated to have grown by 2.5% since Q3 1997.

The Public Sector Net Cash Requirement (formerly Public Sector Borrowing Requirement) was Ł1.6bn in September but that figure is expected to be lower when October's data is released.

Whether or not the MPC decided on a further interest rate cut at the beginning of the month, we shall know its thinking on Wednesday: the minutes of each meeting are now being published much more promptly - about 2 weeks later.