Britain just got its first concrete sign that Brexit will destroy the economy

    > ... some obscure group (Markit) ...

Looking up Wikipedia[0]:

    Markit Ltd. is a global, financial information
    and services company with over 4,000 employees,
    founded in 2003 as independent source of credit
    derivative pricing.

    Revenue US$ $1.5 billion

Scarcely a fly-by-night "unknown" group.

Further, the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) seems to agree with them. This was reported in the press:

    The abrupt and large fall in both orders
    and output reported by IHS Markit and the
    CIPS clearly makes a recession in the
    second half of 2016 a real risk. Similar
    results for August and September would
    suggest a 0.4% contraction in the economy
    in the third quarter.  It only takes two
    successive quarters of contraction to
    constitute a technical recession. [1]

Further, these "flash PMI readings" have been used for decades and are generally regarded as good indicators, albeit possible that they are just blips and may need revision.

However, it's really not looking good. I personally know of lucrative contracts that have been cancelled, terminated, or delayed.

By all means feel free to regard all this as scare-mongering, but don't hold that attitude by default way past the point where the trend becomes obvious.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markit

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/22/post-brexit...