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Economy in Brief
U.S. Housing Affordability Declines Further in June
The NAR Fixed Rate Mortgage Housing Affordability Index fell 3.6% in June...
EMU Output Makes Solid Gain in June
The European Monetary Union posted a 0.7% increase for industrial output in June...
U.S. Producer Prices Fall During July; Core Increase Weakens
The Producer Price Index for Final Demand fell 0.5% during July...
U.S. Unemployment Claims Continue on an Uptrend
Initial claims for unemployment insurance filed in the week ended August 6 rose 14,000 to 262,000...
RICS Survey Points to More U.K. Housing Sector Weakness
The survey of housing market conditions in the U.K. continues to show strength in prices versus weakness...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Robert Brusca April 10, 2007
French industrial output was up especially strong rising by 1.1% and led by a 1.2% increase in the output of consumer goods. EU IP trends have been soft recently. Even Germany where conditions have been rather solid has showed some weakness in consumer goods output; of course Germany may still be fighting its way though some VAT effects early in the year. With this strong gain in February, France at least shows that one large EU country has some solid output growth in consumer goods. This has been led by autos where output is up by a strong 4.7% spurt in February alone.
For France the chart now shows some building momentum trends in place as the 3-mo growth rate is rising sharply and the six month pace is firming along with the Yr/Yr pace.
In February France demonstrates good growth across sectors. Auto output is especially strong. Consumer goods output is surprisingly robust as that sector had lagged. Capital goods output trends are simply steady and above the pace of 4%. Intermediate goods output has picked up in February.
SAAR except m/m | Feb-07 | Jan-07 | Dec-06 | 3-mo | 6-mo | 12-mo |
IP total | 1.1% | -0.2% | 1.0% | 7.7% | 1.6% | 2.6% |
Consumer | 1.2% | 0.4% | 0.0% | 6.4% | 2.9% | 2.3% |
Capital | 0.3% | 0.4% | 0.5% | 4.8% | 4.4% | 4.6% |
Intermediary | 1.3% | -1.2% | 1.4% | 6.3% | 1.2% | 3.5% |
Memo | ||||||
Auto | 4.7% | 0.4% | 1.5% | 29.9% | 3.9% | 4.5% |