Recent Updates
- Japan: ** Japan's consumption activity index rebased from 2010=100 to 2011=100.**
- France: Loans (Feb), Foreign Currency Liquidity (Mar)
- Spain: Industrial New Orders and Turnover, Service Sector, Construction Permits (Feb)
- Germany: Tourism, Wages & Earnings, Trade in Goods (Feb)
- UK: Employment on a Zero-Hours Contract (Q4)
- Croatia: Construction Work Indexes (Feb); Albania: Tourism (Mar) Ukraine: Retail Trade Turnover (Mar); Macedonia: Wages (Feb);
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
German PPI Accelerates
The German year-on-year PPI has generally been decelerating since early 2017...
U.S. Leading Economic Indicators Signal Continued Expansion
The Conference Board's Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators increased 0.3% during March...
Philadelphia Fed Factory Conditions Improve; Prices Jump
The Philadelphia Fed reported that its General Factory Sector Business Conditions Index rose to 23.2 during April...
U.S. Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance Are Little Changed
Initial unemployment insurance claims slipped to 232,000 (-6.1% y/y) during the week ended April 14...
U.K. Retail Sales Fall
U.K. GDP is expected to cool its jets when the first quarter GDP number is released...
by Robert Brusca January 16, 2008
The UK economy continues to be a bit enigmatic. Unemployment
is still declining. Economic activity seems to blow and cold. The
financial chaos is threatening to take Northern Rock into the public
domain. The economy is clearly battered but at the same it shows some
resilience and that goes for some of its inflation measures as well…but
not so those for house prices. The RICS survey on housing prices finds
that the breadth of price declines is increasing. The current reading
on prices, price expectations and sales expectations are all on
lifetime lows for those series, respectively. New sales are weak but
comparatively seem full of life in the bottom 23 percent of their range
(ranges since 1999). Both Price and price expectations are on extreme
down legs of their respective cycles. And even with the new lifetime
lows neither shows any sign of slowing down it pace of descent.
RICS: House prices and expectations for prices and sales | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dec-07 | Nov-07 | Oct-07 | 3-Mo Avg | 6-Mo Avg | 12-Mo Avg | Range Percentile |
|
Prices | -49 | -41 | -24 | -38 | -20 | 2 | 0.0% |
Price Expectations | -62 | -48 | -36 | -49 | -32 | -10 | 0.0% |
Sales expectations | -19 | -8 | -6 | -11 | -9 | 3 | 0.0% |
New Sales | -21 | -35 | -32 | -29 | -26 | -13 | 23.0% |
Range percentile takes range back to 1999 |