Retail sales

Économiste Monétaire

Retail sales have continued on their downward path. Not a particularly positive sign for Q2 private consumption. Link.

For the lazy:


The collapse in property, and related home furnishings, has produced some nasty numbers: Furniture and Lighting down 31.3% Y-o-Y, Hardware, Paint and Glass down 27.2% (all in volume terms and SA). Household equipment, overall, is down 22%.

Time Magazine

Cars aside, tonight we're gonna party like it's 2005.

So back to 2005 levels. ISEQ in July 2005 was 6770, today it's 2681.

silverharp

I've noticed that with some US stats on freight movements for example, all appear to be down 30-40% from last year. It make me wonder how an exporting country like China can be reporting 7% plus growth

Économiste Monétaire

The Economist wrote: »

Cars aside, tonight we're gonna party like it's 2005.

So back to 2005 levels. ISEQ in July 2005 was 6770, today it's 2681.

The rapping economist :pac:

silverharp wrote: »

I've noticed that with some US stats on freight movements for example, all appear to be down 30-40% from last year. It make me wonder how an exporting country like China can be reporting 7% plus growth

They're being manipulated—to what degree is up for debate. I can't remember if I read the story here or elsewhere, but, there was the issue of industrial production and electricity usage in the industry heavy regions. The numbers didn't add up, so, the Chinese authorities stopped publishing them.

Anonymous1987

An interesting article in the Economist suggests China's figures are so high because of easy credit and the effects of its own stimulus package, going as far even to suggest the possibility of an asset boom if domestic credit conditions continue. When you take into account the size of the Chinese stimulus package, approximately $586bn to the size of the economy $4.33 trillion (approximately 13.5% of GDP) versus say the US stimulus $787bn to $14.26 trillion (approximately 5.5% of GDP), the Chinese government stimulus package is substantially larger which when coupled with higher lending it might help to make more sense of the figures.

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14041646

As EM said it is almost accepted that the Chinese government manipulates the figures, especially when its politically favorable for them to "keep face" so its important to keep this in mind at the same time.

silverharp

Eurozone industrial new orders dropped 0.2% in May from the previous month, following a revised 0.7% decrease in April . Economists were looking for a monthly growth of 1.9%.