Economic Data

It was not the news stream, which was poor to say the least. The flash European PMI and German IFO warns that even the German economy may be fizzling. UK Q1 GDP was revised down. Yet by the news hit the euro selling appears to exhaust…

The European fiscal compact which calls for EU countries to stay within the Maastricht treaty government deficit hurdle of 3% of GDP has already been signed off on by all 27 EU governments except the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic.…

When I listed my Ten Surprises for 2012 in January I predicted that China would have a hard landing, defined as quarterly growth below 5% annualised by the end of this year. But I also said that India would be worse than China. And it is…

Yesterday I wrote about Chinese trade growth plummeting. This is having a negative impact on economic growth. The Chinese authorities get that. And so they have decided to boost demand.

The latest data out of China will give those expecting a soft landing pause about China's economic situation. While inflation has come down somewhat of late, so too have industrial output and capital investment. This is creating EM feedback…

This is not a good day for Spain. The day began with the EU Commission revising its estimates for the Spanish economy. The contraction is now expected to be considerably deeper. Spain unveiled its new efforts to address the banking…

This chart was attached to a very good front page article in today's Wall Street Journal by Marcus Walker on How a Radical Greek Rescue Plan Fell Short. The article gives a blow-by-blow account on how the Greek crisis has unfolded and a…

A few of the investment banks have a macro or economic surprise index. In March I mentioned Barclays' version. This month I wanted to highlight Citi's version and what it is telling us about the US economy.

So momentum is weakening across the entire global economy at the present point, not just in say Europe, or China. Global output is still growing but it is growing at an increasingly weaker pace. What could change that?

Later this week, I plan to write a more comprehensive post on the European sovereign debt crisis to incorporate what we have learned since the French and Greek elections. Here's a short preview of what I will have to say.