Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Mixed signals in G7 economies

There continues to be mixed signals in the G7 and global economies which suggest that the one directional downturn may be over. This does not mean that we will see a recovery, but the slowing of the downward adjustment seems to be ocurring. This may allow for a firming of both debt and equity markets.

One country which is an extreme example on the export side of the global economy is Taiwan. Export orders were again down with industrial production, but the numbers were not as bad expected. Still the export decline was over 20% and the fall in industrial production was over 27%.

The PMI numbers for France, Germany, and the EU were all flat relative to the previous report. The indices are suggesting that Europe is no worse although we are not near balanced readings of 50.

In the US, the Richmond Fed manufacturing index shot up to -20 when the market was expecting down -51. This was a sizable jolt to the index albeit we are still much worse than the last recession. We have seen this type of gain before. In the last recession, there was strong rebound in manufacturing only to see the numbers decline again in 2003.

While markets are focused on policy changes, it wil be the rel economy which sets a floor.

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