Saturday 14 November 2009

Eurozone economy returns to growth

From Bloomberg:

The euro-area economy emerged from its worst recession since World War II in the third quarter as exports from Germany and France helped compensate for households’ reluctance to increase spending.

Gross domestic product in the economy of the 16 nations using the euro rose 0.4 percent from the second quarter, when it fell 0.2 percent, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. Economists had forecast the economy to grow 0.5 percent, according to the median of 34 estimates in a Bloomberg survey...

In the year, euro-area GDP declined a seasonally adjusted 4.1 percent in the July-September period after dropping 4.8 percent in the second quarter. In the 27-nation EU, GDP rose 0.2 percent from the previous three-month period, when it dropped 0.3 percent. The statistics office is scheduled to publish a breakdown of third-quarter GDP on Dec. 3.

We know from an earlier report that the US economy also returned to growth in the third quarter. A jump in the US trade deficit corroborates the economy's expansion, but a fall in consumer confidence could undermine growth in coming months. Again from Bloomberg:

Confidence among U.S. consumers unexpectedly dropped in November as the loss of jobs threatened to undermine the biggest part of the economy.

The Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary sentiment index decreased to a three-month low of 66 from 70.6 in October...

The U.S. trade gap widened 18 percent to the highest level since January, the Commerce Department said. Imports rose 5.8 percent, the most since March 1993, as the cost of a barrel of crude climbed to the highest level since October 2008 and volumes also rose. Exports increased 2.9 percent, propelled by sales of aircraft and industrial machines.

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