US 4th quarter GDP revised up, data from Europe and Japan mixed

US fourth quarter GDP growth has been revised upward again. From Reuters:

Gross domestic product increased at a 1.7 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter -- slightly up from 1.6 percent estimated a month ago and in line with forecasts -- but sharply down from the third quarter's 4.1 percent pace, the Commerce Department said...

An inflation gauge frequently cited by the Fed -- the price index for personal spending excluding food and energy -- was revised to a 2.4 percent rate of annual increase in the fourth quarter from 2.1 percent rise estimated a month ago. That was well ahead of the 1.4 percent rate in the third quarter...

Profits after taxes surged in the fourth quarter as the impact of uninsured losses from the hurricanes waned. Businesses posted a 13.8 percent increase in after-tax profits following a 4.3 percent decline in the third quarter...

The rate of growth in consumer spending...slowed sharply in the fourth quarter, growing at a 0.9 percent pace...just a fraction of the 4.1 percent rate of increase for spending in the third quarter.

Meanwhile, the labour market continues to improve.

Separately, the Labor Department reported that new claims for U.S. jobless benefits fell 10,000 last week to 302,000 from an upwardly revised 312,000 in the prior week, implying a resilient jobs market.

The labour market looks less rosy in Germany, with the number of jobless, adjusted for seasonal swings, rising by 30,000 to 4.73 million in March, the second increase in three months, and the jobless rate rising to 11.4 percent from 11.3 percent.

France's unemployment rate, on the other hand, was unchanged at 9.6 percent in February, but consumer confidence did fall to minus 26 in March from a 10-month high of minus 24 in February.

In the UK, data from the Nationwide building society show that house prices rose 1.1 percent in March or 5.3 percent over the previous year -- the biggest annual increase since May 2005 -- after a 3.7 percent gain in February.

The news from Japan recently has been mixed. The trade ministry reported yesterday that industrial output fell 1.7 percent in February, the first drop in seven months, but today's reports were somewhat better.

Japan’s unemployment rate has dropped to its lowest level in more than seven years... The jobless rate fell to 4.1 per cent in February from 4.4 per cent in the previous month, according to government figures published on Friday. The number of unemployed people fell by 210,000 in the month, with an increase of 240,000 in the number of people in a job. The jobs-to-applicants ratio rose to 1.04, a 14-year high...

Core consumer price inflation remained stable in February at 0.5 per cent – confounding a consensus forecast that it would rise slightly.

But Takuji Aida, chief economist at Barclays Capital Japan, said inflation would continue rising, leading to expected increases in interest rates later this year...

Other figures published on Friday showed a 1.5 per cent year-on-year fall in household spending in real terms, although spending was up 0.2 per cent from January after adjusting for seasonal variations.