Economy in Brief: March 2024

A cacophony of trends and readings for Japan Japan's surveys for January show broad weakening despite an improvement in the METI service sector reading that rose for the second month in a row. Readings are varied, but they oscillate in a range of moderation to weakness. There is scant evidence of any strength across sectors in these various surveys using different methods of assessment and over various sectors or industries.

The Teikoku construction index improved month-to-month in January. The economy watchers index showed an improvement in employment and in its future index. For the economy watchers survey, those are three improvements in a row for employment and for the futures index. However, there's more weakening going on in January than there is strengthening.

The METI sector indexes showed industry weakening to a 97.6 reading in January from 105.5 in December. The Teikoku indexes show weakening month-to-month in services, wholesaling, retailing, and manufacturing, while in December, retailing, wholesaling, and services had improved monthly. In the economy watchers index, there was weakness in the headline and the retail sector; eating & drinking establishments and services sector readings also eased in January but all four of those surveys came after improvements in December- the economy watchers index itself had increased in each of the two previous months.

The emerging picture for Japan, therefore, is one with mixed performance across the surveys. We can also evaluate these statistics by looking at the growth rankings; for example, the year-over-year ranking of growth rates for indexes or for diffusion levels. The economy watcher diffusion indexes’ growth rates are above historic medians, except for the retail sector, which has a 44-percentile ranking. However, the rankings are not very robust with the highest being the future index with the 65-percentile ranking. The economy watchers index itself has only a 51.7 percentile growth ranking. The ranking on the levels of economy watchers diffusion indexes are higher in the 70th to 80th percentile range except for employment, whose diffusion level standing is below its historic median at its 48.3 percentile.

The Teikoku indexes also are diffusion indexes. We evaluate them on their year-over-year growth first; manufacturing and wholesaling both have growth rankings below their historic medians. The other components have rankings in their mid to low 60th percentiles. If we rank these diffusion indexes on their levels, the manufacturing index has only a 39.5 percentile standing; the rest of the sectors have standings that are in their 60th percentile decile-the exception is construction which is at its 55.8 percentile.

Spanish headline inflation has clearly hit a sticky spot and stopped its tendency to fall. Inflation peaked in 2022. Headline inflation is now clearly up from its low point of early-2023 and moving sideways at a higher level above the 2 1/2 percent growth rate.

The Spanish HICP rate for February backed off from its January spike, growing by 0.4% in February, but that was after a 0.9% increase in January. As a result of that clustering of strong price gains, inflation is spurting. Spain’s inflation on the HICP shows 3% over 12 months, a gain over six months at a 4% pace, and a gain over three months at a 5.8% pace. That's a clear pattern of acceleration and of course a level of inflation on all horizons that's higher than the benchmark 2% pace that the ECB sets for the community as a whole.

Spain’s domestic CPI shows a similar pattern with the CPI up by 0.3% in February after a 0.8% gain in January. CPI inflation is up 2.8% over 12 months; that gain rises to a 3.4% pace over six months and a 4.8% pace over three months. Spain’s inflation rate is clearly climbing whether we look at the HICP measure or the domestic CPI measure.

Core inflation is usually better behaved because it omits the volatile inflation elements of the headline gauges. Spain's core is up by 0.4% in February after rising by 0.5% in January. The 12-month core inflation rate is at 2.5%; that pace decelerates to 1.7% over six months but then it rises, gaining to 4.8% at an annual rate over three months.

Spain's inflation rate over three months whether measured by the HICP or CPI headlines, or the core is clearly excessive. Over six months inflation is excessive on both headline measures, but the core comes in at only 1.7%. Over 12 months Spain's inflation is between the lower 2.5% core increase and the higher 3% increase on the HICP.

The bottom line on this report is not that it is mixed. The headline on this report is meant to reflect the fact that industrial production clearly continues to be weak, clearly continues to decline; however, the pace of decline shows signs of easing- both in terms of some of the sequential growth rates and in terms of the performance of the manufacturing PMI for the Monetary Union. The overriding message from the report is that conditions remain weak and are not recovering. However, there is a significant side-bar message here that things are not worsening and there are some signs of subtle improvement amid ongoing contraction that's the more complicated or sophisticated message from this month's report.

MFG PMI helps to sort out complicated assessments Overall industrial production declined by 3.2% in January after two straight months of increasing. Manufacturing output performs just about the same. However, the message from manufacturing PMI statistics is that manufacturing PMI indexes are higher month-to-month in January, in December and in November; there are higher sequentially over six months compared to 12 months and over three months compared to six months. However, the other message from the PMI gauges is that the PMI manufacturing statistic is below 50 on all those months and all those sequential horizons. So, there's a more complicated story that is told rather clearly by the PMI that tells us that PMIs are below 50 yet they have generally been improving.

For growth rates, industrial production shows manufacturing output falling 7% over 12 months reducing that to a 3% annual rate drop over six months and to a 4% annual rate drop over three months. From 12-months to six-months, the rate of decline is reduced, but then from six-months to three-months the rate of decline accelerates slightly.

Sector stories- Manufacturing sectors show consumer goods output is improving sequentially, moving from a 3.7% drop over 12 months to a small rise over six months to a 7.7% annual rate increase over three months. Durable goods, however, show a steady menu of declines over 12 months to three months without a clear trend. Nondurables output shows a decline over 12 months, then increases over three months and six months, but again, without a clear accelerating trend – but there is still an improving trend. Intermediate goods show an accelerating trend with output falling 2.6% over 12 months, trimming that decline to a -1.5% pace over six months, and then logging an increase at a 1.8% annual rate over three months. However, capital goods, a relatively important sector in the Monetary Union, show worsening conditions. Capital goods output falls 9.3% over 12 months, falls at a 9.5% annual rate over six months, and then accelerates the drop sharply to a -16.1% annual rate over three months.

Quarter-to-Date- Quarter-to-date (QTD) statistics for industrial production are, of course, tentative with only one month's worth of data for the new quarter in place. But here we are looking at the growth rate of the one-month new quarter index against the quarterly average of 2023-Q4. We see a double-digit decline in industrial production QTD at -11.6% pace and a decline in manufacturing at a -17.4% annual rate.

Manufacturing Production across the Monetary Union- Turning to the performance across the Monetary Union and other European early reporters, we see the output is accelerating in a minority of members in January. That's a weaker performance from the 69% proportion of accelerations reported in December, but it's more similar to the 38.5% acceleration rate logged in November. Sequentially output accelerated over 12 months in 45.5% of the monetary union members that stepped up to 69% over six months and then backed down to only 27% showing acceleration over three months. Of the recent three months, conditions are quite weak with a number of countries showing very substantial negative numbers and only Spain and Portugal produce strong positive growth rates over three months as well as six months. Quarter-to-date growth across countries shows declines in most countries with the exceptions being Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Belgium.

Growth rate rankings in historic context- The far-right hand column ranks growth by sector and by country by comparing the current year-over-year growth rate and industrial output to historic record back to 2007. On that timeline, all the aggregate monetary union growth rates are extremely weak. In fact, EMU sector growth rates are below the 15th percentile except intermediate goods which has a 31-percentile standing. Among EMU members, only two countries have growth rates that are above their historic medians (that is above a ranking at the 50th percentile) and the exceptions are Spain and Greece. For the other three reporting European economies (not EMU members), the U.K. growth rate has a 64.4 percentile standing, Sweden has a 53.7 percentile standing, and Norway has a 31.7 percentile standing. These standings are generally higher and more moderate than what we see among Monetary Union members.