Showing posts with label Euro area economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Euro area economy. Show all posts

Saturday, July 4, 2020

4/7/20: ifo Institute Eurozone Growth Outlook


Germany's ifo Institute issued a new growth outlook for Eurozone economy:

  • "Overall, the eurozone economy is likely to see a sharp recession in the first half of 2020. 
  • "GDP already contracted in Q1 by 3.6%. 
  • "In Q2, the decline of GDP is forecast to be historic (-12.3%). 
  • "On the other hand, the recovery is likely to be quick supported by massive stimuli in some eurozone countries with GDP growth reaching +8.3% in Q3 and +2.8% in Q4 2020. 
  • "Yet, the GDP level at the end of last year will not be reached by the end of this year."

In 1Q 2020:

  • GDP fell by 3.6%. 
  • "The greatest negative contribution came from private consumption. 
  • "... firms hold back their investments due to liquidity issues and uncertainty on future developments. 
  • "... external demand was weak and caused exports to plunge. 
  • "Economic activity went down by 5.3% (Italy), 5.3% (France) and 5.2% (Spain). Germany was affected less severely with GDP contracting by 2.2%. 
Dynamics into June:
  • "The European Commission’s economic sentiment indicator fell from 94 points in March further to 65 points in April, rebounded somewhat in May and increased strongly in June up to almost 76 points."
  • "The IHS Markit composite purchasing manager’s index reflects a similar development as it dropped from 30 points in March to as low as 14 points in April. In May it recovered to 32 and in June again up to 48 points." Note: Markit PMIs below 50 indicate continued, compounded contraction, as a rise in index from 32 to 48 between May and June means that contraction was weaker in June.
Summary of forecasts:


Headwinds to the above forecast:
  • "Currently, economic projections are made in face of high epidemiological uncertainty. ... This forecast assumes that a second COVID-19 wave will be prevented. The occurrence of a second wave, with containment measures to being introduced again, is thus a downward risk for our forecast. 
  • "Another uncertainty for this forecast is that we are still learning about consumer reactions to containment measures and it is still unclear, how quickly consumption behavior will normalize.
  • "In addition, the liquidity situation of many companies is deteriorating rapidly. An unexpectedly high number of insolvencies might disturb the economic recovery and cause bigger than expected problems for the banking sector. Currently, in many countries new regulations for postponing insolvencies were introduced, which means that these will become evident later than usual, probably not before autumn. 
  • "Also, numerous private households might run into solvency issues due to lower income and a worsening labour market situation."
In contrast, here are the IMF latest forecasts for the euro area:



Markit PMIs:


Wednesday, June 12, 2019

12/6/19: All's Well in the Euro Paradise


All is well in the Euro [economy] Paradise...


Via @FT, Germany's latest 10 year bunds auction got off a great start as "the country auctioned 10-year Bunds at a yield of minus 0.24 per cent, according to Germany’s finance agency. The yield was well below the minus 0.07 per cent at the previous 10-year auction in late May. The previous trough of minus 0.11 per cent was recorded in 2016. Notably, demand in Wednesday’s auction was the weakest since late January, with investors placing bids for 1.6-times more than the €22bn that was issued."

Because while the "Euro is forever", economic growth (and the possibility of monetary normalisation) is for never... 

Monday, April 16, 2018

15/4/18: US Trade Wars and the Global Economy


My interview for Icelandic TV on the threat of trade wars led by the U.S. :http://www.visir.is/section/MEDIA99&fileid=VTV094E2C7D-0F20-48CA-ADB4-8F8515C4B1E7


Friday, October 30, 2015

30/10/15: Eurocoin: Not so Sunny on the Growth Horizon...


Eurocoin - a leading growth indicator for Euro area economy published by CEPR and Banca d'Italia - posted second consecutive monthly decline in October, falling to 0.36 from 0.39 in September and down from the recent peak of 0.43 registered in August. This is the weakest reading for the indicator in 6 months.


For what it is worth, the ECB remains stuck in a proverbial monetary corner:

While in historical terms, growth signal of 0.36% (and annualised average over the last 12 months of 1.58%) is above long term average (annualised average growth over the last 15 years of 1.03% or over the last 5 years of 0.57%), growth remains anaemic by all possible comparatives beyond the Euro area.

You can see the less than pleasant specifics on eurocoin drivers for October here: http://eurocoin.cepr.org/index.php?q=node/243. In the nutshell, things are static across all major sectors, with households' optimism is largely flattening; and if we ignore the European Commission survey signals, things are poor for the industrial sector.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

9/9/15: That poverty of low [Euro area GDP growth] expectations…


So, apparently, "strong eurozone growth" for 2Q 2015 is fuelling hopes for economic recovery and pushing markets up. Which makes for some funny reading, considering the following:
1) Eurozone GDP grew by a mind-blowing… 0.4% in 2Q 2015 in q/q terms. Which, hold your breath there, matey… was a decline on 0.52% (revised) growth in 1Q 2015.
2) It gets better, yet: growth 'improvement' was down to a rise in exports due to devalued euro (err.. now, who would have thought that to be a reason to cheer?). Exports increase accounted for 0.3% of the total 0.4% of 2Q growth. Full details are here.

The glorious achievement of the Great Patriotic Eurozone Economy under the wise stewardship of [insert a name of a Brussels Directorate or one of the EU Presidents here] was so blindingly obvious that one can't miss it using a mapping of historical past growth rates.


Yes, yes… that is right - the "strong" rate of eurozone growth in 2Q 2015 was exactly the same as that attained in Q4 2014 and identical to Q3 2010 (remember, that was 'blistering' too). 1Q 1999 - 1Q 2008 average quarterly growth rate in the eurozone was 0.56% and that was the period when the euro area was actually showing structural weaknesses compared to other advanced economies. Over the period of 12 months through 2Q 2015, average growth is 0.4% and we call this… err… "strong".

That poverty of low expectations…

Friday, August 14, 2015

14/8/15: Individual Consumption and the Irish Crisis


Couple of interesting charts showing the latest annual data on individual consumption in the EU.

First, volume indices of real expenditure per capita in PPS (with index for each year set at EU28=100) (these figures are adjusted for inflation and exchange rates differences.


The chart shows how growth in consumption in the EU28 over time was coincident with decline in relative position of Ireland in terms of individual consumption throughout the crisis period. In 2003-2004 Irish individual consumption stood 8 and 7 percentage points above EU28 average. This was marginally below the EA12 average. In 2005-2007, Irish individual consumption grew faster than consumption for EU28 and EA12, rising to 110 in index terms, or 10 percentage points above the EU28 and roughly 2 percentage points above the EA12. Since 2008, however, Irish individual consumption fell both relative to EU28 and EA12 figures. In the second year of 'robust recovery' - 2014 - Irish individual consumption (adjusting for inflation and exchange rates differences) hit the period low of 93 - full 7 percentage points below EU28 and 14 points below EA12.

As the result of the crisis, our real consumption per capita was down 16.2% on 2007 levels, which is the second worst performance after Greece (down 17%). Our performance was much worse than a 13.6% decline registered in the U.K., 10.6% decline registered in Iceland, 9.9% drop in Cyprus, 9.7% decline in the Netherlands, 8.2% drop in Spain and so on.

In nominal terms (without adjusting for inflation), our individual consumption record was equally abysmal (comparing only euro area states to remove distorting effects of exchange rates variation):


In summary, even after the onset of the 'fastest recovery' in the euro area, Ireland's actual individual consumption of goods and services remained au-par. In 2014 itself, our individual consumption grew 6.0% y/y - second fastest in EU28 after Luxembourg - but years of past devastation meant that our consumption remained second worst hit compared to pre-crisis levels. In 1999, Ireland ranked 12th in terms of individual nominal consumption in the EU 28 group of states. Our best year was attained in 2008 when we ranked 3rd. In every year between 2011 and 2014, we ranked 11th. In simple terms, the entire history of the euro area membership for Ireland has been equivalent to, largely, standing still in terms of our relative wellbeing compared to other EU states. 

Monday, August 3, 2015

3/8/15: Greek Manufacturing PMI: In the Land of Imaginary Numbers


Markit Manufacturing PMI for Greece is outright disastrous.

Euro area Manufacturing PMI for July came out with a slight decrease on June 2015 reading, still beating (marginally) flash estimate:

Looking at countries ranked by PMI reading, Italy showed a surprise rise, while Austria posted a surprise fall:

But the real story is Greece:

One wonders, just how much more the Greek economy is going to contract before the Bailout 3.0 is finalised and just what new wondrously well-working structural reforms will be needed to get it out of the new hole?

Sunday, April 12, 2015

12/4/15: Economic Divergence: U.S. v Europe


Recently, I have highlighted couple of signs of emerging weaknesses in the U.S. economy relative to the positive news momentum in the euro area. You can see Manufacturing Sector evidence here and Business Activity evidence here. Meanwhile, economic surprise indices have also been pointing to the same: here.

An interesting chart from Pictet summarising the trend by plotting Economic Surprise Indices for euro area and the U.S. side by side:

Source: Pictet

The above shows divergence in the two series from Q4 2014 on.

And the overall markets valuations heat map showing stronger over-valuation (lighter colouring) in Q1 2015 in the euro area core compared to the US:


Source: BBVA Research

In cyclical terms, the above reinforces the view that the U.S. economy is settling into the growth range around 3.1% of GDP, while the euro area economy is moving closer to 1.1-1.4% growth. The divergence in two economies' core signals of future activity is in part driven by the differences in the monetary policies expectations, with ECB driving deeper into its QE programme, while the Fed is now shifting toward tighter stance.

In particular, recent statements from the Fed are fuelling uncertainty about the dollar and the U.S. interest rates environment. Median analysts outlook suggests a 50bps hike by the end of 2015 on the Fed side, with my own view that the Fed is most likely to hike around September. This outlook is highly uncertain, due to divergent signals coming from the Fed. Another point of uncertainty is what will follow the initial hike in U.S. rates. My view is that we can see a relatively long period of time over which the Fed will do nothing, before hiking the rates for the second time. The reason for this is that the Fed is fully aware of the risk of making a policy error on its first hike size and timing, and it will leave a wide enough period to collect evidence on the effects of its first intervention before moving again.

Meanwhile, the ECB has delivered twin push on its expansionary monetary policy in March, completing EUR60 billion in purchases of bonds and also deploying EUR97.8 billion TLTRO lending. The balancesheet of the ECB is growing, finally, and with it, Frankfurt has delivered a big stimulus to the euro area financial markets. This pushed bond yields to record lows: German yields are negative out to 6 year maturity, with 10 year Bunds trading at around 0.2% yields, and UST-Bund 10 year spread widening to 180 bps. It also shifted liquidity into risk assets, such as stocks and corporate bonds. Stock markets rallied: Germany up 25% in 2015 so far, France up 22%, Portugal up 31%, Spain up 14% and so on. Virtually none of these gains can be attributed to improved corporate balancesheets or companies' performance.

Here is a neat summary by Pictet of markets moves over Q1 2015:
Source: Pictet

The above highlights two things:
  1. European equities outperformance over Q1 2015 is massive and is completely unjustified by the macroeconomic fundamentals and companies' performance; and
  2. European equities outperformance accelerated in March
As Pictet notes, virtually all of the above outperformance is down to monetary policy-induced revaluation of the exchange rates: "Shares, in local currency terms and with dividends reinvested, are up by 16.8% in Europe, well ahead of the S&P 500’s 1.0% gain. However, European investors who

had invested in US equities will have benefited from a 13.7% rise in the S&P 500 when translated into euros, considerably reducing Wall Street’s underperformance in the year to date. Japanese shares have been the top performers though, advancing by 10.5%. If we add in the euro’s fall in value against the yen, that translates into a rise of just over 24.5%." 

Excluding energy sectors, corporate earnings growth forecasts currently put expected earnings uplift of 9.0% in the U.S. against 15.8% in the euro area over 2015, again predominantly on the back of currency valuations changes.

All in, the worrying trend of economic performance fully dependent on unorthodox monetary policies and relatively unanchored in the real economy remains. Rising divergence between the U.S. - euro area signals shows inherent weaknesses and risks present in such  environment.

Monday, January 12, 2015

12/1/2015: Euro area and Russian Economic Outlooks: 2015


My comments to the Portuguese Expresso, covering forecasts for 2015 for Russia and the Euro area:

- Russia

Despite the end-of-2014 abatement of the currency crisis, Russian economy will continue to face severe headwinds in 2015. The core drivers for the crisis of 2014 are still present and will be hard to address in the short term.

Geopolitical crisis relating to Eastern Ukraine is now much broader, encompassing the direct juxtaposition of the Russian strategy aimed at securing its regional power base and the Western, especially Nato, interest in the region. This juxtaposition means that risks arising from escalated tensions over the Baltic sea and Eastern and Central Europe are likely to remain in place over the first half of 2015 and will not begin to ease until H2 2015 in the earliest. With them, the prospect of tougher sanctions on Russian economy is unlikely to go away.

While capital outflows are likely to diminish in 2015, Russia is still at a risk of increased pressures on the Ruble due to continued debt redemptions calls on Russian companies and banks. In H1 2015, Russian companies and banks will be required to repay ca USD46 billion in maturing debt, with roughly three quarters of this due to direct and intermediated lenders not affiliated with the borrowers. These redemptions will constitute a direct cash call of around USD25 billion, allowing for some debt raising in dim sum markets and across other markets not impacted by the Western sanctions. USD36.3 billion of debt will mature in H2 2015, which implies a direct demand for some USD17-20 billion in cash on top of H1 demand. The peak of 2015 debt maturity will take place in Q1 2015, which represents another potential flash point for the Ruble, especially as the Ruble supports from sales of corporate foreign exchange holdings requested by the Government taper off around February.

Inflation is currently already running above 10 percent and this is likely to be the lower-end support line for 2015 annual rate forecast. Again, I expect spiking up in inflation in H1 2015, reaching 13-14 percent, with some stabilisation in H2 2015 at around 11 percent.

Economic growth is likely to fall off significantly compared to the already testing 2014.

Assuming oil prices average at around USD80 per barrel (an assumption consistent with December 2014 market consensus forecast), we can expect GDP to contract by around 2.2-2.5 percent in 2015, depending on inflation trends and capital outflows dynamics.

Lower oil prices will lead to lower growth, so at USD60 per barrel, my expectation is for the economy to shrink by roughly 4-5 percent in 2015. Crucially, decline in economic activity will be broadly based. I expect dramatic contraction in domestic demand, driven by twin collapse in consumer spending and private investment. In line with these forces, demand for imports will decline by around 15 percent in 2015, possibly as much as 20 percent, with most of this impact being felt by European exporters. Public investment will lag and fiscal tightening on expenditure side will mean added negative drag on growth.

About the only positive side of the Russian economy will be imports substitution in food and drink sectors, and a knock on effect from this on food processing, transportation and distribution sectors.

To the adverse side of the above forecasts, if interest rates remain at current levels, we can see a broad and significant weakening in the banks balance sheets and cash flows arising from growth in non-performing loans, and corporate and household defaults, as well as huge pressure on banks margins and operating profits. This can trigger a banking crisis, and will certainly cut deeper into corporate and household credit supply.

On the downside of my forecast, a combination of lower oil prices (average annual price at around USD50-60 per barrel) and monetary tightening, together with fiscal consolidation can result in economic can result in a recession of around 7 percent in 2015, with inflation running at around 13 percent over the full year 2015.

Even under the most benign assumptions, Russian economy is facing a very tough 2015. Crucially, from the socio-economic point of view, 2015 will see two adverse shocks to the system: the requirement to rebalance public spending on social benefits in order to compensate for inflation and Ruble devaluation pressures, and the rising demand on social services from rising unemployment. Volatility will be high through H1 2015, with crisis re-igniting from time to time, causing big calls on CBR to use forex reserves and prompting escalating rhetoric about political instability. We can also expect Government reshuffle and rising pressure on fiscal policy side. The risk of capital controls will remain in place, but. most likely, we will have to wait until after the end of Q1 2015 to see this threat re-surfacing.


- Eurozone

2014 was characterised by continued decoupling of the euro area from other advanced economies in terms of growth. Stagnation of the euro area economy, arising primarily from the legacy of the balances sheet crisis that started in 2007-2008 will remain the main feature of the regional economy in 2015. Despite numerous monetary policy innovations and the never-ending talk from the ECB, the European Commission and Council on the need for action, euro area's core problems remain unaddressed. These are: public and private debt overhangs, excessive levels of taxation suppressing innovation and entrepreneurship, a set of substantial demographic challenges and the lack of structural drivers for productivity growth.

My expectation is for the euro area economy to expand by around 0.8-1 percent in 2015 in real terms, with inflation staying at very low levels, running at an annual rate of around 0.6-0.7 percent. Inflation forecast is sensitive to energy prices and is less sensitive to monetary policy, but it is relatively clear that consumer demand is unlikely to rebound sufficiently enough to lift inflation off its current near-zero plateau. Corporate investment will also remain stagnant, with exception of potential acceleration in M&A activities in Europe, driven primarily by the build up in retained corporate earnings on the balance sheets of the North American and Asian companies.

Barring adverse shocks, growth will remain more robust in some of the hardest-hit 'peripheral' economies, namely Ireland, Spain and Portugal. This dynamic is warranted by the magnitude of the crisis that impacted these economies prior to 2013. Thus, the three 'peripherals' will likely out-perform core European states in terms of growth. Italy, however, will remain the key economic pressure point for the euro area, and Greece will remain volatile in political terms. Within core economies, recovery in Germany will be subdued, but sufficient enough to put pressure on ECB and the European Commission to withdraw support for more aggressive monetary and fiscal measures. France will see little rebound from current stagnation, but this rebound will be relatively weak and primarily technical in nature.

Crucially, the ECB will be able to meet its balance sheet expansion targets only partially in 2015. Frankfurt's asset base expansion is likely to be closer to EUR300-400 billion instead of EUR500 billion-plus expected by the policymakers. The reason for this will be lack of demand for new funding by the banks which are still facing pressures of deleveraging and will continue experiencing elevated levels of non-performing loans. In return, weaker than expected monetary expansion will mean a shift in policymakers rhetoric toward the thesis that fiscal policies will have to take up the slack in supporting growth. We can expect, therefore, lack of progress in terms of fiscal consolidations, especially in France and Italy, but also Spain. All three countries will likely fail to meet their fiscal targets for 2015-2016. Thus, across the euro area, government debt levels will not post significant improvement in 2015, carrying over the pain of public sector deleveraging into 2016.

As the result of fiscal consolidation slack, growth will be more reliant on public spending. While notionally this will support GDP expansion, on the ground there will be little real change - European economies are already saturated with public spending and any further expansion is unlikely to drive up real, ROI-positive, activity.

Overall, euro area will, despite all the policy measures being put forward, remain a major drag on global growth in 2015, with the regional economy further decoupling from the North American and Asia-Pacific regions. The core causes of European growth slump are not cyclical and cannot be addressed by continuing to prime the tax-and-spend pump of traditional European politics. Further problem to European growth revival thesis is presented by the political cycle. In the presence of rising force of marginal and extremist populism, traditional parties and incumbent Governments will be unable to deploy any serious reforms. Neither austerity-centric deleveraging approach currently adopted by Europe, nor growth-focused reforms of taxation and subsidies mechanisms will be feasible. Which simply means that status quo of weak growth and severe debt overhangs will remain in place.

The above outlook is based on a number of assumptions that are contestable. One key assumption is that of no disruption in the current sovereign bonds markets. If the pick up in the global economy is more robust, however, we can see the beginning of deflation in the Government bonds markets, leading to sharper rise in 'peripheral' and other European yields, higher call on funding costs and lower ability to issue new debt. In this case, all bets on fiscal policy supporting modest growth will be off and we will see even greater reliance in the euro area on ECB stance.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

11/1/2015: ECB's Favourite Inflation Expectations Indicator is Smokin...


And here's a nice reminder courtesy of @SoberLook.com of the markets' view of 5-year-to-10-year forward inflation expectations for the euro area:


Note: 5y/5y inflation swap basically measures expected inflation for the period of between 5 years from now and 10 years from now (5 years over 5 years from now). Here is a note on its importance to ECB policy http://www.itcmarkets.com/news-press/itc-egbs-questions-regarding-draghis-reference-to-5y5y-forward-rate-and-inflation.

Needless to say, at ECB inflation target of 2% over the next 1-2 years, we should be expecting 5y/5y to be above 2% mark, not below it. And if previous (2004-2007 period) should be our guide for growth, we should be looking at 5y/5y swap rate at around 2.4%.

Which means the 'flashing red' indicator for ECB is now smoking.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

16/10/2014: Euro Area Industrial Production Losing Momentum... What Momentum?..


A nice chart from Pictet, graphing industrial production in the US against the Euro area:


Everyone is talking about 'fading momentum' in euro area industrial production... my view: what 'fading momentum'? Euro area industrial output has been on a declining trend for more than 36 months now. The 'recovery' from Q1 2013 through Q1 2014 was a blip - so weak in any 'momentum' it is not worth mentioning.

The chart basically shows no gains on output in the sector for the euro area since 2000-2003 averages. If there was any 'momentum' in the series before the last couple of months, would anyone please point it out?

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Monday, October 6, 2014

6/10/2014: Ifo Forecast for Euro Area Economy: Q4 2014 and Q1 2015


Germany's Ifo institute released its joint forecasts for Euro area economy through Q1 2015. Here are the details:

"In Q3 2014, economic activity is expected to increase again, but only moderately, as geopolitical concerns are still strong and seem to affect investors’ confidence. GDP is projected to increase by 0.2% in the Q3 and Q4 2014, and expand by 0.3% in Q1 2015."

But, the Ifo warns about "increased asymmetries across euro area economies. The recovery is expected
to be mainly driven by a gradual improvement in domestic demand conditions. Private investment is expected to restart over the forecast horizon triggered by improved liquidity conditions and lower cost of capital, after the sharp adjustment following the financial crisis. The rise in production activity and increasing demand for new production capacity will be the main factor underpinning the recovery. Consumption prospects remain positive, albeit subdued, as the recovery in the labor market is projected to be gradual. Under the assumptions that the oil price stabilises at USD 97 per barrel and that the dollar/euro exchange rate fluctuates around 1.28, the headline inflation is expected to increase only marginally over the next two quarters, remaining significantly below the threshold of 2%."

On the risks side: "Key downside risks to this scenario comprise the effective recovery of investment and the increases in the savings rate of private households owing to deleveraging. A weaker external demand from emerging economies, especially from Asia and Latin America, as well as a greater impact of international tensions in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, might also be a drag on the exports and investment."

Summary of forecasts:

All of which acts a nice prelude to tomorrow's release of the IMF WEO update for October. I'd say expect (given World Bank previously released forecasts) some downgrades to growth expectations...

Friday, November 22, 2013

22/11/2013: German GDP - no surprise to the downside

German GDP figures out: Q2 2013 confirmed at +0.7% q/q, Q3 2013 final at 0.3% q/q. Year-on-Year Q3 2013 at +1.1%, exports up only +0.1% q/q, imports up +0.8% q/q.

A chart (via @moved_average):


And the chart lesson? Recovery period: 2010-to-date: Trend growth down-sloping, volatility consistent with 2002-2007 period. The latest recovery sub-period - unconvincing.

More on euro area growth: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/11/20112013-euro-area-zaporozhetz-of-growth.html

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

12/11/2013: OECD Leading Indicators: September 2013


The poverty of non-recovery recovery...

OECD Leading indicators numbers are out and we have... 100.7 current (barely any growth) against 100.6 prior (barely any growth)... In other words, things are going nowhere fast:

  • Japan beats OECD trend at 101.1 but a weak expansion on prior 101.0
  • Euro area 100.7 same as OECD average, on 100.6 prior (weak expansion) and ditto for Germany which is now under-performing regional at 100.5 up on 100.4 prior. France - the 'laggard' before - is still a drag: 100.1 current on 99.8 prior.
  • US 100.8 against 100.9 prior (so slower, but still slightly ahead of OECD average)
  • UK 101.3 (ahead of OECD average) compared to 101.1 prior
  • In contrast, two BRICs: China 99.4 on 99.2 prior - anaemic, and India 96.7 on 96.9 prior - weak.
So all in - tough conditions remain, but at least OECD is above 100...


Euro area set:

Sunday, September 15, 2013

15/9/2013: A Surging... Floater...

You've seen the 'Euro area economy is surging ahead' headlines on foot of recent PMIs... and you have seen warnings on the accuracy of the indices (see http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/09/1092013-pmi-and-real-economy-goldman.html)... but what about levels?

Ugh... 'surging'?.. or maybe 'barely floating'?

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

27/8/2013: Ifo Business Expectations: Germany, August 2013

On foot of my previous post (http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/08/2782013-ifo-business-climate-survey-for.html), here is a longer-term view of the role expectations play in co-determining / tracking the subsequent realisation of business conditions and climate under the Ifo index.


Answer is: not much. The same picture holds for 12 months lags.

In other words, as I said above: expectations (in the case of German businesses) are more conservative and less volatile than either current situation index or climate index. And this suggests that expectations tend to adjust to current climate imperfectly but stronger than lead the future index readings. For the forecasting purpose, it is probably the longer-run averages, in more complex econometric structures, that are more likely more indicative of the true underlying dynamics being declared under the expectations. In simple terms: don't read too much into short term changes (short-term being 12 months and less) in expectations...

Interestingly, the Ifo series are high quality data, unlike many other series, such as, for example, smaller economies' PMIs. Yet, to my knowledge, no one does any serious analysis of expectations and their predictive power for any of the regularly-released series on business activity. This just goes to show how simplistic the markets-related macro analysis can be.

27/8/2013: Ifo Business Climate Survey for Germany: August 2013

CES Ifo Business Climate figures for Germany are out today, showing further gains in underlying economic conditions and expectations forward.

Year on year, business climate index reading improved 5.2% to 107.5 in August 2013, with monthly improvement of 1.2%. 3mo average over the last 3 months was 106.5 against 105.6 average for the 3mo period through May 2013 and 103.5 3mo average through August 2012.

On business situation side, index rose to 112.0 in August 2013, up 1.7% on July 2013 and 0.9% on August 2012. 3mo average through August 2013 stood at 110.5, ahead of 109.1 3mo average through May 2013, but below 112.1 average through August 2012.

Business expectations index also rose in August to 103.3 from 102.4 in July, showing a monthly gain of 0.9% and an annual gain of 9.8%. 3mo average through August 2013 is at 102.7 against 3mo average through May 2013 102.3, suggesting that pick up in overall expectations has been rather subdued. This might be due to the index overall showing lower volatility around the mean than other two indices. In other words, conservative expectations are staying closer to the mean and watching if the rest of the series do catch up with expected expansion. 3mo average through August 2012 was 95.6, suggesting that overall, there has been some serious optimism built up over the last 12 months, further warranting some moderation in the rate of optimism growth forward.

Chart to summarise:


Thursday, July 25, 2013

25/7/2013: BlackRock Institute latest survey results for global economic outlook: June 2013

The latest summary of the global growth conditions from the BlackRock Investment Institute. Click on the chart to open larger version. I have highlighted Ireland on the chart.

Blue bars reflect consensus on current phase of economic development (for example, in Ireland's case, current phase is seen as being recessionary by roughly 25% of respondents to the survey). Red dot corresponds to 6mo forward expectation (in Ireland's case, 50% of respondents expect recession in Ireland to either continue or to present itself again in 6 months time).


Note: this is the view of surveyed economists and not the view of the BlackRock II. The chart is based on the "trailing 3 survey reports for the other regions we poll. In our first month of this initiative, we collected the views of over 430 economists from more than 200 institutions, spanning over 50 countries"