There was a lot of US data yesterday, but the significance was mixed on the whole. From Reuters:
The Commerce Department said consumer inflation rose 0.2 percent in June, while personal income increased 0.6 percent in the month and nominal spending was up 0.4 percent. The latter two figures both matched Wall Street expectations...
News from the industrial sector proved positive, with the Institute for Supply Management's index of national factory activity rising to 54.7 in July from 53.8 in June, beating economists' forecasts for a slight fall...
The prices paid component of the index, which measures inflationary pressures within the sector, rose to 78.5 from 76.5, the highest reading in nine months.
New orders, a gauge of future growth, slipped to 56.1 from 57.9 while the employment index rose to 50.7 from 48.7...
Construction spending rose a stronger-than-expected 0.3 percent to a record high in June on gains in nonresidential and public building, but private residential construction fell for the third month in a row...
The National Association of Realtors said pending sales of U.S. homes, based on contracts signed in June, rose unexpectedly for the second straight month...
U.S. domestic car and truck sales in July came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 13.1 million, slightly higher than expectations, analysts said. The figure was higher that June's seasonally adjusted annual rate of 12.5 million, but lower than last July's seasonally adjusted annual rate of 17.2 million...
In his first public appearance on Tuesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson touted the economy's recent performance, saying the United States was "absolutely not" headed toward recession.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is still seeing some strong data.
Bloomberg reports data from the euro zone:
The jobless rate in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, declined in July to a seasonally adjusted 10.6 percent, matching the lowest since August 2004, from 10.8 percent in June, the Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg said today. Royal Bank of Scotland Plc said its index based on a survey of purchasing managers slipped to 57.4 from June's 57.7, the highest in six years. A reading above 50 indicates expansion...
Joblessness in the euro area declined to 7.8 percent in June, the lowest since August 2001, from 7.9 percent in May, the European Union's statistics office in Luxembourg said today.
In the UK, manufacturing slowed in July with the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply/RBS Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) falling to 53.8 from a downwardly-revised 55.0 in June, but house prices jumped sharply in July, reports Reuters.
The Nationwide building society said the cost of an average home rose 0.8 percent last month after a 0.3 percent gain in June.
That took prices 5.9 percent higher than a year earlier compared with a 5.0 percent annual increase in June, and the highest since April 2005 when the market was slowing after double-digit rates of growth in previous years.
Even Japan is seeing land prices rise. From AFP/CNA:
Japanese land prices rose for the first time in 14 years as the property market springs back to life after a long slump since the "economic bubble" burst in the early 1990s, the government has said.
The average price of land along side major roads rose 0.9 percent to 114,000 yen (994 dollars) per square meter as of January 1 from a year earlier, the National Tax Agency reported.
Whatever is driving the global economy is clearly reaching down under. Again from AFP/CNA:
Australia's central bank raised interest rates by 25 basis points to a six-year high of 6.0 percent Wednesday in an effort to head off inflationary pressures in a booming economy.
The widely-anticipated move by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) board came after the headline annual inflation rate hit 4.0 percent following a surge in the June quarter, well above the bank's target range of 2.0-3.0 percent.
If global inflation seems to be on the rise, that could be because China is no longer exporting deflation. From MarketWatch:
Investment bank CLSA said its Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for China, a composite indicator designed to provide a snapshot of the health of the manufacturing sector, rose to 53 from 52.9 in June, its highest level since May 2005...
Although the rate of output price inflation had eased, firms raised prices they charged for finished goods for a fourth consecutive month in July...
"The era of China 'exporting deflation' is long over," [deputy chief economist at CLSA Eric Fishwick] said. "For the fourth month, both input and output price indices were above the 50 breakeven line, signaling that businessmen have no choice but to try and pass input price rises on."
But that might not be possible in the future if China over-invests. From People's Daily Online:
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said overall fixed assets investment during the first half grew 29.8 precent to 4.24 trillion yuan (530 billion US dollars), 4.4 perentage points higher than the same period last year.
Meanwhile, nearly 100,000 new construction projects were launched, 18,000 more than the first half of last year.
No comments:
Post a Comment