Japan’s private sector machinery orders fell unexpectedly for the third consecutive month, dropping 3% to US$7.05B in May from April, hitting the lowest level since April 1987. May’s figure was worse than expected as economists had predicted a 2.1% increase. Machine orders are a leading indicator of capital spending; therefore a decline indicates that companies [...]
UK factory output unexpectedly fell for the first time in three months, dropping 0.5% in May, significantly below forecasts of a 0.2% increase. Eight categories of manufacturing fell in the month, led by paper, printing & publishing, as well as machinery and equipment. However, the story is not as dim for Britain’s neighbors, as a [...]
Argentina has found themselves in a critical situation. The country has been warned by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) to cut spending or risk experiencing a budget deficit for the first time in seven years. According to an S&P economist, “the overall situation looks weaker and the economy is decelerating“. Spending grew eleven times as fast [...]
The U.S. market received another rude awakening yesterday, with reports that unemployment in the United States continued to climb in June, hitting a 26-year high of 9.5% (up from 9.4% in May). 467,000 jobs were lost, far worse than the forecasted 365,000 decline, marking the first time in four months that the number of jobs [...]
Unemployment in the Irish Republic hit a 13-year high of 11.9% in June – the highest level since April 1996 – and the number of people claiming for jobless benefits nearly doubled to 418,592 in the past year. Ireland has the second highest unemployment rate in the EU (behind Spain), a sboth countries are experiencing [...]
The UK Economy has definitely seen better days, as yesterday it reported the worst contraction in 50 years, as the economy shrank by 2.4% in Q01 2009. This was significantly higher than the 1.9% decline previously reported by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The revised contraction also exceeded analysts’ forecasts of 2.1%. The Office [...]
Though there is talk that the U.S. and Europe are emerging from the recession, Japan certainly has not yet gotten over it. Japan, with the world’s second largest economy, saw exports slump once again in May, falling 40.9% YOY, even more than April’s 39.1% decline. This was worse than the expected 39.3% fall as consumers [...]
Yesterday, for the first time in two years, the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) upgraded its estimate for the economy of its 30 member nations. The OECD now expects that the combined economy of the world’s most advanced countries will contract 4.1% in 2009 and grow 0.7% in 2010. This is an improvement [...]
The U.S. breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when Moody’s maintained its Triple-A credit rating, calling it “safe”. This announcement came just a week after Standard & Poor’s statement that the U.S.’ top AAA credit rating is unlikely to come under pressure in the near term. Moody’s issued a stable outlook on the U.S. rating, [...]
German Investor Confidence rose for the 8th straight month in June. The ZEW institute’s economic sentiment index increased to 44.8 points from 31.1 points in May, the highest increase since May 2006. Analysts had predicted a gain to 37 points in the country which is battling its worst slump since World War II. The index [...]