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Economy in Brief
U.S. Mortgage Applications Continue to Weaken
The MBA Loan Applications Index fell 1.2% (-54.5% y/y) in the week ended May 20...
German Climate Reading Continues to Skid Toward the Abyss
Germany's GfK consumer climate reading improved ever so slightly in June...
U.S. New Home Sales Plunge in April as Prices Jump
The new home sales market is unraveling...
U.S. Energy Prices Rise Further
Retail gasoline prices increased to $4.59 per gallon in the week ended May 23...
S&P Flash PMIs Are Mixed in May As Manufacturing Erodes Slowly
Among the early reporting countries in Europe and Japan, the S&P PMI readings for May tilt toward weakness...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
State Coincident Indexes in April 2022
State Labor Markets in April 2022
Profits & Margins Plunge In Q1: Expect More Margin Contraction As Fed Squeezes Inflation
The Many Links of Inflation Cycle: Hard Landing Is Needed to Crack Them
Peak Inflation and Fed Policy: A Relationship which Should Worry the Fed and Scare Investors
by Robert Brusca March 16, 2012
The EMU trade surplus has fallen off month to month but the recent surplus still is large.
In EMU domestic demand is collapsing and with it import volume is contacting. Weaker imports
have helped even weakening export trends to create a bulge in the region’s trade surplus.
The chart shows clearly that while export and import have trended to track one another, over the past three months imports have spurted and showed much greater weakness.
This month imports blipped up exceed export growth and helped to shrink the trade surplus slightly.
Export growth is still head and shoulders above import growth on all horizons. The EMU trade surplus is positioned to be in place for some time.
Currently there is enough weakness in EMU to constrict imports but EMU has enough of an export base to outside area that exports have kept up and these external markets have continued to be strong. The EMU is keeping its economies going in the ace of austerity and a now-tightening monetary policy by siphoning off the domestic demand from other countries, one of them being the US. We are back to playing that game and before long the US will be widely criticized for running a large trade deficit again. What else is new?
Euro-Area Trade Trends for Goods | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
M/M% | % SAAR | |||||
Jan-12 | Dec-11 | Nov-11 | 3M | 6M | 12M | |
Balance* | € 5,902 | € 7,370 | € 5,415 | € 6,229 | € 3,100 | € 212 |
Exports | ||||||
All Exp | 1.3% | 0.9% | 3.2% | 24.2% | 14.9% | 8.2% |
Food and Drinks | - | -0.3% | 1.8% | 35.0% | 22.1% | 7.0% |
Raw materials | - | 0.6% | 1.8% | 9.1% | 21.5% | 14.4% |
MFG | - | 2.1% | 4.4% | 30.5% | 20.2% | 13.8% |
IMPORTS | ||||||
All IMP | 2.4% | -0.4% | -0.3% | 7.0% | 1.2% | 1.8% |
Food and Drinks | - | 2.2% | 0.3% | 7.7% | 4.3% | 8.4% |
Raw Materials | - | -2.0% | 0.6% | -11.2% | -12.3% | 3.3% |
MFG | - | 0.9% | -0.9% | -5.8% | -1.8% | 0.1% |
*Eur mlns; mo or period average; Gray shaded areas lag one month |