Author:
Date published:
14 February 2020
2 mins
Economic data were tepid this week…
- US retail sales increased 0.3% in January at a headline level but the core reading was flat (vs +0.3% expected) and the previous month’s number was also revised down by three tenths, presenting risks to consumption growth in both Q1 and the final estimate for Q4. Consumer spending in the States has slowed notably from the (admittedly elevated) levels of last spring/summer
- The NFIB small business optimism index rose 1.6pt to 104.3 in January, below the local high of 108.recorded in August 2018 but still at a reassuringly elevated level
- German GDP was flat in Q4 2019, causing the yoy rate to fall from 0.6% to 0.5%, just above the local low of 0.3% recorded in Q2, with business capex remaining the principal drag
- UK GDP was also flat in Q4; modest upward revisions to the previous two quarters left the yoy growth rate at 1.1%, with net exports contributing to qoq growth, whilst inventories, consumption and business investment declined
…but declining perceived coronavirus risk allowed markets to trade with a “risk-on” tone
- Global stocks ground another 1-2% higher over the week as the number of new coronavirus cases outside of the epicentre in Hubei Province fell for a second week running. New cases in Hubei jumped in midweek leading to a short-term wobble, but this was reversed as markets came to understand that this was due to a cha• The euro touched nearly three-year lows against the US dollar. This was in part due to weak recent data. It also owed a lot to the perception that the near-term growth outlook for the manufacturing-intensive economies of the euro area has been dimmed by the virus-related disruption to the Chinese industrial sector, which is a voracious consumer of euro area capital goods exports
- German GDP was flat in Q4 2019, causing the yoy rate to fall from 0.6% to 0.5%, just above the local low of 0.3% recorded in Q2, with business capex remaining the principal drag
- UK Chancellor Javid unexpectedly resigned and was replaced by Rishi Sunak, who is seen as more likely to implement fiscally expansionary policy, leading to a rally in Sterling