Germany's industrial production fell by 9.2% in March after a 0.3% gain in February. Sequential growth rates are falling across all sectors and decelerating from 12-months to six-months to three-months. In the just completed quarter, [...]
Introducing
Robert Brusca
in:Our Authors
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.
Publications by Robert Brusca
Global| May 06 2020Global Composite PMIs Take a Sudden Deep Dive
Once again the data demonstrate a sharp drop that has had no real prelude. February was a more or less normal month; then March and April saw collapse come out of the blue as the wheels went spinning off the wagons. These are the [...]
- Global| May 05 2020
EMU PPI Weakens Sharply; Impacts of COVID-19 and the Fight Against It Spread Everywhere
I read the news today, oh, boy… It is Cinco de Mayo but the bars are closed so celebrating that holds bleak prospects. The euro area PPI is not the sort of thing we would celebrate, putting Cinco de Mayo aside. Sure, low-inflation [...]
- Global| May 04 2020
PMIs Collapse Globally...Except China...Is That a Problem?
The finalized April PMIs for Europe are even weaker than the already released flash versions that were themselves quite weak. The spread of weakness is unusually uniform with the weakest manufacturing PMIs reading at 27.4 (India) and [...]
- Global| May 01 2020
April Manufacturing PMIs- Early Responders
The manufacturing PMI readings fell significantly everywhere globally. But in China where the gauge did lose standing it barely ticked below 50, indicating contraction. Japan showed the second most resilience with its manufacturing [...]
- Global| Apr 30 2020
EMU GDP Takes a Deep Dive; Everyone Holds Their Breath
Europe was hit especially hard in Q1. The year-on-year growth rates for this cluster of reporters is at or near the lowest they have posted since end-1997. European economies generally were hit a bit earlier than the U.S. That is [...]
- Global| Apr 29 2020
EU Indexes Fall Hard
There is no-catching the dropping, tumbling knife There is not much to analyze in the EU indexes this month. The bottom fell out and everything went down with it. One sector, construction, shows some 'resilience' (as it has been doing [...]
- Global| Apr 28 2020
French INSEE Surveys Show a Sharp Shift in Sentiment
The French surveys have been very weak in April (graph/table). The household survey (table), despite its seemingly mild drop in April, has actually logged the largest month-to-month drop (a drop of 8 points) in the history of the [...]
- Global| Apr 27 2020
Finland's Consumer Confidence to All-Time Low...Among Other Things
Finland's consumer confidence index has short history, but in the graphic we overlay the longer-lived EU measure of confidence against the Finnish domestic measure and the sharp recent collapse in the recent index is starkly revealed. [...]
- Global| Apr 24 2020
Germany's IFO Plunges to All-New Depths
This is not snorkeling or even deep sea diving; it requires a bathyscaphe. The German IFO has sunk to new depths even after a substantial plunge a month ago. All of the rankings display severe weakness with the ongoing lone exception [...]
- Global| Apr 23 2020
Germany: The Hammer Falls on Confidence in May
The expectation for German confidence in May has taken the sharpest, deepest and broadest turn for the worse on record. The German April reading had taken 'a step down' and a significant one at that. But the full realization of what [...]
- Global| Apr 22 2020
U.K. Inflation Steps Back; COVID-19 Lurks Less Than People Think
U.K. inflation has remained tame. In December there was a broad-based acceleration, but that has dissipated in February and March. In March and February, only about 21% of the major categories and the headline accelerated month-to- [...]
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