Recent Updates
- ** New Zealand's Jobs Online Report has been delayed by the source, MBIE, until 6:00 PM ET 4/26.**
- UK: RICS Commercial Market Survey (Q1) Mortgage and Consumer Lending, Average Precipitation (Mar)
- Markit PMI: Manufacturing Survey - Austria (Apr)
- Germany: GfK Consumer Climate Survey, BA-X Job Index (Apr)
- Spain: Mortgage Market, Labor Force Survey (Q1)
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- more updates...
Economy in Brief
Japan Shows Very Moderate Growth As Trade War Clouds Gather
Japan’s sector indexes showed a solid gain in February...
U.S. Consumer Confidence Unexpectedly Rose in April
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index rose to 128.7 in April from 127.0 (initially reported as 127.7) in March...
U.S. New Home Sales and Prices Strengthen
Sales of new single-family homes during March increased 4.0% (8.8% y/y) to 694,000 (SAAR)...
U.S. FHFA House Price Index Continues to Strengthen
The FHFA index of U.S. house prices rose 0.6% during February...
U.S. Energy Prices Rise Further
Retail gasoline prices increased to $2.80 per gallon last week (14.3% y/y)...
by Robert Brusca June 1, 2009
The UK MFG
PMI is up to a level of 45.37, the second highest reading in this group
of EU/EMU reporters (Greece is the highest). The UK index also is 10%
from its cycle high and 10% above its cycle low. The EMU measure is 17%
from its high and 7% up from its low.
The UK MFG measure is up an EU best gain of 10.4 points
over the past three months. France Germany and Spain have the next best
increases up by 8.5, 7.98 and 7.44 points respectively. 
Europe is
improving, but the UK seems to be making the strongest MFG rebound so
far.
With the release of the US MFG PMI on Monday, the US index shows that it continues to hold its lead on Europe, signaling that the US recovery remains in the vanguard of the global expansion. It has about a four-month head start on EMU but its lead in terms of the level of the PMI index itself is small. The UK MFG rise has been ahead of the US sector for the past few months but that sector does not carry the global punch that the US does.
| Markit MFG Indexes | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May-09 | Apr-09 | Mar-09 | 3Mo | 6Mo | 12Mo | Percentile | |
| Euro-Area | 40.68 | 36.83 | 33.93 | 37.15 | 35.55 | 39.92 | 29.5% |
| Germany | 39.58 | 35.40 | 32.36 | 35.78 | 34.02 | 40.26 | 27.7% |
| France | 43.32 | 40.10 | 36.51 | 39.98 | 37.93 | 40.87 | 38.0% |
| Italy | 41.11 | 37.21 | 34.59 | 37.64 | 36.58 | 39.82 | 28.5% |
| Spain | 39.83 | 34.61 | 32.92 | 35.79 | 33.20 | 35.31 | 39.5% |
| Austria | 39.30 | 38.97 | 33.68 | 37.32 | 35.78 | 40.53 | 24.0% |
| Greece | 46.08 | 40.88 | 38.17 | 41.71 | 40.83 | 45.34 | 46.3% |
| Ireland | 39.35 | 36.10 | 35.12 | 36.86 | 36.76 | 39.50 | 27.8% |
| EU | |||||||
| UK | 45.37 | 43.07 | 39.51 | 42.65 | 39.17 | 40.44 | 48.7% |
| percentile is over range since March 2000 | |||||||
