Global| May 02 2008The NTC MFG Index/Indices Continue to Drop
Summary
The NTC MFG indices fell on broad front in April. Their declines were steeper than they have been. Still only Germany, Greece and the Netherlands are in the top half of their respective percentile ranges. The EMU economy as a whole is [...]
The NTC MFG indices fell on broad front in April. Their
declines were steeper than they have been. Still only Germany, Greece
and the Netherlands are in the top half of their respective percentile
ranges. The EMU economy as a whole is in the lower portion of its range
of values since March of 2000. Italy, Spain and Ireland are showing
extreme weakness. Still half of the EMU area’s MFG PMIs are showing
expansion and are above the neutral 50 reading; the UK is another. EMU
is looking vulnerable to weakness. EMU and its indices peaked in mid
2006. They cycled to a low in September of 2007, rebounded through
early 2008 before taking a new leg down. The slide in Europe on the
back of the rising euro makes sense. We still do not have much idea why
Europe broke out of its declining phase from mid to late 2007 when the
Euro was still strong. But its return to weakness makes sense.
| NTC MFG Indices | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr-08 | Mar-08 | Feb-08 | 3Mo | 6Mo | 12Mo | Percentile | |
| Euro-13 | 50.74 | 52.03 | 52.34 | 51.70 | 52.21 | 53.15 | 44.5% |
| Germany | 53.62 | 55.14 | 54.28 | 54.35 | 54.13 | 54.79 | 61.4% |
| France | 51.12 | 51.88 | 53.81 | 52.27 | 52.86 | 52.68 | 39.9% |
| Italy | 48.24 | 49.41 | 50.64 | 49.43 | 50.20 | 51.74 | 29.5% |
| Spain | 45.19 | 46.42 | 46.72 | 46.11 | 48.06 | 50.21 | 12.4% |
| Austria | 49.83 | 53.39 | 52.36 | 51.86 | 52.98 | 53.49 | 41.9% |
| Greece | 54.38 | 52.73 | 52.35 | 53.15 | 52.98 | 53.50 | 57.9% |
| Ireland | 44.69 | 46.01 | 49.78 | 46.83 | 48.12 | 50.73 | 0.0% |
| Netherlands | 51.45 | 53.15 | 51.91 | 52.17 | 53.08 | 55.03 | 51.6% |
| EU | |||||||
| UK | 50.96 | 51.25 | 51.24 | 51.15 | 51.73 | 53.18 | 50.6% |
| percentile is over range since March 2000 | |||||||
Robert Brusca
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Robert A. Brusca is Chief Economist of Fact and Opinion Economics, a consulting firm he founded in Manhattan. He has been an economist on Wall Street for over 25 years. He has visited central banking and large institutional clients in over 30 countries in his career as an economist. Mr. Brusca was a Divisional Research Chief at the Federal Reserve Bank of NY (Chief of the International Financial markets Division), a Fed Watcher at Irving Trust and Chief Economist at Nikko Securities International. He is widely quoted and appears in various media. Mr. Brusca holds an MA and Ph.D. in economics from Michigan State University and a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan. His research pursues his strong interests in non aligned policy economics as well as international economics. FAO Economics’ research targets investors to assist them in making better investment decisions in stocks, bonds and in a variety of international assets. The company does not manage money and has no conflicts in giving economic advice.
