German industrial production and exports fall

Tuesday's economic reports were more mixed than those from previous days.

Germany provided much of the bad news, as Bloomberg reports:

German exports fell more than economists forecast in April as the global crisis restrained demand, keeping Europe’s largest economy mired in a recession.

Sales abroad, adjusted for working days and seasonal changes, fell 4.8 percent from March, when they rose a revised 0.3 percent, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said today...

German imports dropped 5.8 percent in April from the previous month, when they increased a revised 0.2 percent, the statistics office said. The trade surplus narrowed to 9.4 billion euros ($13.1 billion) from 11.3 billion euros.

Bloomberg also reports that German industrial production was down in April.

German industrial output unexpectedly declined in April led by investment goods, suggesting Europe’s largest economy may struggle to gather strength.

Production dropped 1.9 percent from March when it rose 0.3 percent, the Economy Ministry in Berlin said today. Economists predicted an increase of 0.3 percent, the median of 30 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey showed. From a year earlier, output declined 22 percent when adjusted for work days.

However, the positive news flow continued in Japan, with both the coincident and leading indices of economic indicators rising 1 point in April, and in France, where the Bank of France’s Business Sentiment Indicator climbed to 81 in May from 75 in April.

Meanwhile, economic data from the UK were mixed, with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reporting that house prices fell at their slowest annual pace in 1-1/2 years in the three months to May but the British Retail Consortium reporting that consumers curbed spending in shops.