mercoledì 10 marzo 2010

Locomotiva Tedesca Uber Alles


Alcuni veloci ma significativi copia/incolla sulla Germania, la locomotiva della UE....
Lascio a voi le conclusioni.
Oggi purtroppo non ho molto tempo da dedicare al Blog a causa di altre priorità.

Germania: export crolla a gennaio, -6,3%
10 marzo 2010
Le esportazioni tedesche sono inaspettatamente crollate a gennaio, registrando un ribasso del 6,3% rispetto a dicembre 2009.

In quel mese l'indice era salito del 3,4%.

Il risultato e' in controtendenza con le attese degli analisti che si aspettavano un incremento dell'export dello 0,5%.

Su base annua, l'indice ha segnato un rialzo dello 0,2%.
Le importazioni, sempre a gennaio, sono cresciute del 6% su base mensile.

Germania: a gennaio surplus commerciale in calo, sotto attese

Il surplus commerciale tedesco a gennaio è sceso al minimo di quasi un anno, a causa del forte calo delle esportazioni rispetto al mese precedente, mostrando un inizio 2010 debole.

E' quanto emerge dai dati dell'Ufficio nazionale di statistica.
Le esportazioni tedesche (dato destagionalizzato) sono calate del 6,3% su mese, a 67,9 miliardi di euro, mentre le importazioni sono salite del 6%, a 59,2 miliardi.
Il surplus commerciale a gennaio è stato quindi di 8,7 miliardi, a fronte dei 16,6 miliardi di dicembre.
La previsione del surplus a gennaio era di 16 miliardi.

Le esportazioni erano attese in crescita dello 0,8% e le importazioni aumentare dell'1,2%.

Germania: Produzione Industriale Sale 0,6% a Gennaio (meno del previsto)
8 marzo 2010
La produzione industriale in Germania sale dello 0,6% mensile a gennaio.
Gli analisti si aspettavano un aumento dell'1%, dopo il calo dell'1% a dicembre.
La produzione edilizia e' scesa del 14,3%, contro il 8,8% della produzione energetica e il +0,9% della produzione manifatturiera.

ECB Warns Germany's First Quarter Growth May Be Negative (ECB = BCE)
The most probable replacement to Trichet, Axel Weber who is a member of ECB's governing council said earlier on Bloomberg TV that extend and pretend is now shifting to Europe warning that Germany's Q1 growth could be negative, of course qualifying the statement that everything past this quarter will be stronger.
Weber said that "a very weak first quarter means that the second and third quarters will be stronger."
Even so he said there was still no reason to revise the expectation of German growth in 2010 to just over 1.5%.

We fail to see how with austerity measures sweeping across traditional German import partners, particularly within the PIIGS, there is any hope that the German economy will regain an upward trajectory, although by Q2 and Q3 when various additional stimulus measures will have to be announced globally, and the ECB will likely finally commit to QE, he may very well be right.
As more and more of the world is becoming like China in goalseeked GDP growth virtually all economic indicators are starting to lose any predictive value, especially on an adjusted "stimulus-free" basis.

We will be watching to see if economists revise their German growth expectations following this statement, and whether Bund levels, trading well inside of their US equivalents, push wider on the news.


Di fronte a fondamentali teutonici così deboli, l'indice tedesco di Borsa (DAX) nelle ultime due settimane si è sparato questa traiettoria....
Ma si sa: le borse anticipano, anticipano.















Ed anche la BCE cerca di anticipare l'eccessiva espansione di pericolose BOLLE, drenando un filino di liquidità...
ECB Withdraws Massive €295 Billion Of Liquidity In One-Time "Fine-Tuning" Operation
A quick glance at today's ECB open market operations section indicates that even Trichet may be getting a little worried about liquidity gone wild in Europe..........

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Interessantissima anche questa lunga e complessa analisi (in inglese) della quale
purtroppo non ho tempo di darvi la consueta sintesi ed interpretazione.
Buona lettura....per chi conosce l'inglese, per chi ha la fortuna di possedere sufficienti strumenti interpretativi e soprattutto per chi ha tempo da perdere.


The German Economy Is Essentially "Intact"

Ecco alcuni excerpta

........What exactly it means to say that an economy is intact we will explore below, but it is clear that some confirmation for the view that the German economy is benefiting from increased demand originating outside the Eurozone can be found....
...domestic sales actually fell (by 1.1%), and export turnover rose by 7.3%. Most interestingly, as between destinations, sales to euro area countries only increased by 2.4%, while those to other foreign countries were up 12.0%. This illustrates two points: that the German economy is now more dependent than ever on exports, and that sales to emerging markets are what is really driving export growth at this point....

In fact, while German industry is surely now in "recovery mode", the process is something of a stop-start one (see chart below), since even though according to the latest data from the technology ministry output was up by an estimated 0.6% in January over December (and even up by 2.2% over the very low level hit in January last year) it is still down by 18.5% over the March 2008 peak.


......GDP from October to December was down by 1.7% on a year earlier. The decrease, which was smaller than in the previous quarters of 2009 still meant that German GDP fell by 5% in 2009 as a whole when compared with 2008.


....Then finally we have Q4, and the opposite happens again, imports fall, exports rise, net trade is a growth positive, and inventories are cut back. In each case the other components of growth are rather insignificant, and have in fact weakened as the recession has progressed – I hope this is not what Axel Weber means by saying that the German economy has survived the recession "intact" (namely that it is as export dependent now as ever it was).

.....So, to come back to Axel Weber’s point, I fear intact does mean "business as usual".
Certainly, if we look at the most recent manufacturing PMI, the pace of expansion has improved slightly over the previous quarter, which may mean that those good old inventories are simply piling up again.

...While the services element has, if anything, lost momentum over Q4.

...Bad weather seems to have sent construction falling off a cliff – falling an estimated 14.3% in January....

...And the February construction PMI looks even worse, with the indicator showing the worst decline in activity since the survey was introduced in September 1999...

...Consumer and business confidence readings are faltering...

...Retail sales have been in serial decline since the VAT increase in January 2007.
And the February retail PMI showed another sharp contraction, although again, weather conditions do seem to have played a part.Retail sales in Germany declined sharply on a month-on-month basis in February. At 42.1, down from 42.7 in January, the seasonally adjusted Retail PMI was below the 50.0 no-change threshold, continuing the trend observed since June 2008.The latest reading pointed to the sharpest rate of contraction since January 2009, which survey respondents linked to a combination of bad weather and unfavourable economic conditions. A post-scrappage scheme downturn in demand for new cars was also cited by those in the automobiles sector.

So, to conclude where we started, we can well agree with Axel Weber that the German economy is indeed intact – intact and near stationary.


If we look at the composite PMI below (which is the nearest thing we have to a GDP indicator), it does show slight improvement over Q4 2009, but only a very slight one. Given everything I have said above about swings in imports and inventories, I would say German GDP will be very near to stationary again this quarter, with a possible slight upside depending on the inventory swing, but whatever upside we do see will more than likely disappear as quickly as it came when we get to the Q2 2010 data.