Despite reporting just a few weeks ago that it had emerged from recession, Japan failed to reproduce the same kind of good news with its latest economic data reports. The world’s second largest economy saw its unemployment rate rise to a record high of 5.7% in July, surpassing the previous high of 5.5% which was [...]
The good news just keeps on coming for Germany. Two weeks ago, Europe’s biggest economy gave investors and economists something to smile about, after making an unexpected exit from the recession. To top things off, yesterday, Germany’s Ifo Institute said that business confidence in the nation surged in August to its highest level in just [...]
Despite being the world’s largest energy producer, foreign companies seem to have taken a cautious approach towards Russia. The oil-driven economy announced that its Foreign Direct Investment plummeted a record 45% to US$6.1B for the first half of 2009 (when compared to the same period last year). This adds to the already gloomy economic reports [...]
As more and more countries are reporting that they have swung out of a recession in the past week, the same cannot be said for South Africa. Yesterday, South Africa (which has the African continent’s largest economy) announced that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) shrank 3% for the second quarter (after shrinking 6.4% and 1.8% in [...]
As most economies struggle to make it out of the downturn, Germany and France said goodbye to recession and hello to economic growth in Q02 2009! Both countries reported economic growth of 0.3% during the period, pleasantly surprising analysts who had expected a 0.3% contraction for the European economies. Unfortunately, the improved performance was not [...]
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labour delivered positive news that productivity in Q02 2009 was at its highest level since 2003, as companies cut back on payroll expenses through job layoffs. The non-farming productivity rate of 6.4% was a far cry from the revised 0.3% increase in the first three months of the year, and [...]
Just when Americans started to get comfortable with the idea that things were getting better, they were dished a harsh reality check yesterday. Consumer confidence reports were released, and they were far from pretty. The Conference Board’s confidence index dropped to 46.6 in July from 49.3 in June, its second consecutive monthly decline, and much [...]
Yesterday, the UK Office for National Statistics delivered the news that the UK inflation rate dipped below the central bank’s 2% target in June – for the first time in almost 2 years. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) fell to an annualized rate of 1.8% during the month compared with a 2.2% decline in May. [...]
U.S. consumers’ moods took a negative turn early this month, as the unemployment rate, at its highest level in 26 years, heads towards 10%. The preliminary index of consumer sentiment, produced by Reuters and The University of Michigan, fell 8.76% to 64.6, compared to 70.8 in June. This number also disappoints economists who, on average, [...]
While most consumers are steering clear of big-ticket purchases such as cars, that’s not the case for consumers in the world’s third largest economy – China. China’s passenger vehicle sales jumped 47.7% to 872.K in June YOY, as government stimulus measures including tax cuts, subsidies and other incentives helped boost consumption in the industry. Overall [...]