NEW YORK | One of the keys of the severe financial crisis in the US were “liar loans”, given to people who did not even have a job. Four years later, many worthy homebuyers are paying for that. Banks have become so restrictive in their mortgages that many citizens are frozen out of the housing market, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Thursday. Bernanke said home mortgage credit outstanding…
All the way from Afi analysts in Madrid, we got this simple and colourful chart comparing purchasing managers index figures of different countries in September 2011 (because it was the month when global manufacturing activity recorded the latest lowest levels) and March-April 2012, with a third column that brings up the variation between those dates. The fact is that cyclical divergence between the euro zone and the rest of the…
NEW YORK | U.S. investors are looking forward to this Thursday’s jobless claims figures after the pretty lame monthly jobs report last week. Wall Street needs a sweetener, otherwise investors will keep on the sidelines of the stockmarkets. Only a better than expected (366,000 new jobless claims) figure could boost U.S. market and economical confidence. Indeed, last Friday’s report was shocking: America is creating employment almost at the same rate…
MADRID | Employment creation figures in the US disappointed Wall Street expectations for April, with 115,000 versus 165,000 and a fall of the jobless rate of 0.1 percent to 8.1 percent. Afi analysts in Madrid checked deeper into the subject and concluded in an investor’s note that income per working hour and working hours per week have both been flat, so growth recorded in salary costs was the consequence of…
In March 2012 compared with February 2012, the volume of retail trade rose by 0.3% in the euro area and by 0.7% in the EU. In February, retail trade fell by 0.2% and 0.5% respectively. In March 2012, compared with March 2011, the retail sales index dropped by 0.2% in the euro area, but grew by 1.0% in the EU. These first estimates came from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. In March…
BEIJING | The question on whether China’s economy is expanding or contracting is like answering whether the glass is half full or half empty. The positive official reading signals that there’s no need to worry. With its PMI index calculated after a sample of more than 800 big (and state-owned) companies, PMI is on the rise and above the 50% for the fifth consecutive month. Conversely, HSBC’s reading doesn’t seem to…
LONDON | The Confederation of British Industry said Thursday that household spending will remain subdued, with weak wage growth and unemployment rising to a peak of 2.86 million in the first quarter of 2013. The CBI published its latest quarterly forecast in a somehow hopeful tone, though, voicing prospects of inflation improving next year with further falls, and disposable incomes beginning to recover. The business association pointed out that recent…
Energy consumption in Spain during the past four weeks brought gas demand back to positive figures and stopped further falls in electricity. Red Eléctrica and Enagás released electricity and gas demand data in April and analysts in the financial City of Madrid welcomed the better-than expected news. Electricity demand was slightly on the recovery path with a -0.9 percent and a -1.8 percent annually accumulated decrease. As for electricity generated…
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | Here’s one more example of how politics constantly enters the economics arena with the firm intention of interfering in some way or another. That was the time in which the US Republican conservatives tried to grill the then Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker when he wanted to cool the high inflation of those days down. Let me quote these few lines: “Secretary Regan mustered…
Bad news for those in Brussels and Berlin who expected higher competitiveness through austerity budgets. Eurostat said today that in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with the previous three months, business investment rates decreased in both the euro area and the European Union. Furthermore, official data also showed that in the euro area, the business profit share declined as wage costs increased while value added fell slightly. From October…