Spain was the big winner in today’s release of PMI Manufacturing data, while France (and Greece) were more disappointing: The divergence between Spain and France– and the implications for each country’s industrial production, based on past correlations– is quite striking:...
It has been a very quiet week on the US economic report front but today we finally have a string of high profile releases. We will take them in order of release times… Jobless Claims snapped back a sharp 28K jobs to 326k during the...
New car registrations in the EU slowed to just 4.5%yoy in April, down from a growth rate of more than 13%yoy in December: Interestingly, while new car registrations grew by more than 50%yoy in Portugal and more than 30%yoy in Spain, many of the Nordic...
While initial jobless claims were just a bit higher this week than last (304K vs 302K), the widely watched 4-week moving average slid down to 312K which is its lowest level since October 2007. Continuing claims fell to 6-year low as well....
We had two major economic releases today that suggest that the first quarter GDP in the US may be lower than previously expected. First, the trade deficit unexpectedly widened to $42.3 billion in February from $39.3 billion in January. The consensus was for a slightly...
Today saw the release of Japanese industrial production, the Markit Manufacturing PMI, and housing starts. Unfortunately this latest package of data does little to alter the ongoing trend of a deteriorating Japanese economy. Indeed, industrial production saw the largest one month drop since the earthquake...
We had two regional manufacturing surveys released today: Chicago PMI and the Dallas Fed’s Texas Manufacturing Survey. Consensus estimates had expected the Chicago PMI to come in at 59 instead the headline index came in at 55.9 for the slowest reading since August. The Texas...
With the monthly slue of manufacturing PMI data now in we thought it interesting that Australia posted a nice rebound while China showed a further deterioration (Chart 1). Granted, the Australian data series is much more volatile than the Chinese series, but the two indices...
The ISM Non-Manufacturing Survey came in at 54 for January, just above consensus of 53.9 and slightly higher than in December (53). On Monday, the ISM Manufacturing survey disappointed as it came in at 51.3 vs expectations of 56. We like to look at a...
While the headline ISM non-manufacturing number came just slightly below consensus (53 vs 54.8), the major news out of this report was new orders contracting for the first time since July 2009. In a mere four months, new orders have fallen from 60.5 to 49.4....
The ISM Manufacturing PMI and Markit Manufacturing PMI both indicate that manufacturing activity in the US continued to expand in December. Over the last few years, it has seemed that the US economy had picked up momentum in the 4th quarter, however, the economy then...
Important survey data out of Europe today points to a growing disparity between the region’s two largest economies....
Industrial production rose 1.1% in November, a much stronger gain than forecasters had expected (consensus was for 0.6% gain). The stronger gain in November to took the overall level of industrial production above 2007 highs for the first time. While Utilities helped to push industrial...
ADP payroll data surprised to the upside today (215k vs 185k expected). It was the highest reading so far this year. Perhaps most encouragingly the gain was lead by small businesses. ISM Non-Manufacturing survey came in slightly below expectations (53.9 vs 55.5 expected)....
With the notable exceptions of Spain and France, survey data released for Europe’s manufacturing sector were largely positive– a continuation of a trend that began earlier this year: This would seem to indicate an increased likelihood of stronger industrial production data in the coming weeks:...
