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Economy in Brief

Japan's Economy Watcher's Index on a Decline
by Robert Brusca November 8, 2007

The economy watcher’s index is dropping rapidly and so is the future index. Each of them is at a relative low point in its five year range in the low 40th percentile of it. The weakness in these survey indexes is set in the table against the NTC survey of manufacturing sentiment. MFG sentiment is even weaker, residing in the bottom 15 percentile of its range. Clearly Japan is having some difficulty with growth. Both the anecdotal economy watchers survey and the more grounded NTC survey of manufacturers show fading growth and very low current activity readings.
Key Japanese Surveys
  Raw readings of each survey Percent of 5Yr range
  Oct-07 Sep-07 Aug-07 Jul-07 Oct-07 Sep-07 Aug-07
Diffusion
Economy Watchers 41.5 42.9 44.1 44.7 27.5% 33.9% 39.4%
Employment 43.8 48.8 48.3 51.2 21.5% 39.4% 37.6%
Future 43.1 46.0 46.5 46.7 32.2% 46.7% 49.2%
NTC MFG 49.5 49.8 -- -- 15.5% 18.7% 16.2%
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