UK GDP grew 0.1% mom in October, below expectation of 0.3% mom. GDP remained -0.5% below pre-pandemic level in February 2020.
Services grew 0.4% mom, back at pre-pandemic level. Production dropped -0.6% mom, at -2.1% below pre-pandemic level. Manufacturing rose 0.0% mom, at -2.5% below pre-pandemic level. Construction dropped -1.8% mom, at -2.8% below pre-pandemic level.
New Zealand BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing index dropped from 54.3 to 50.6 in November. Looking at some details, production dropped from 53.2 to 52.2. Employment dropped from 51.7 to 48.2. New orders rose from 54.2 to 54.7. Finished stocks dropped from 54.6 to 48.3. Deliveries dropped from 59.9 to 42.9.
BNZ Senior Economist, Doug Steel stated that “the PMI implications for economic (and employment) growth seem clear – soft. But with obvious difficulties remaining on the supply side, we’d suggest that inflation is still rising.”
BoC Deputy Governor Toni Gravelle said in a speech that in the near term, Omicron triggered a sharp drop in oil prices. But further out, “given its potential to restrain the transition to more balanced consumption patterns between goods and services, it could exacerbate upward price pressure on the goods that are experiencing supply constraints.”
“Supply chain disruptions and related cost pressures continue to be an important upside risk,” he added. BoC will “conduct a full assessment of this risk in January when we update our projection for the economy and inflation.”
US initial jobless claims dropped -43k to 184k in the week ending December 4, much better than expectation of 225k. That’s also the lowest level since September 6, 1969. Four-week moving average of initial claims dropped -21k to 219k, lowest since March 7, 2020.
Continuing claims rose 38k to 1992k in the week ending November 27. Four-week moving average of continuing claims dropped -54k to 2028k, lowest since March 14, 2020.
SECO lowered Swiss GDP growth forecast for 2022 from 3.4% to 3.0%. GDP growth is projected to slow further to 2.0% in 2023, as the economy normalizes. 2021 GDP growth forecast is revised up slightly from 3.2% to 3.3%.
It said that “international supply and capacity bottlenecks are putting pressure on the industrial sector and causing sharp price increases globally”. Also, “uncertainty surrounding the pandemic has recently become strongly accentuated and several countries have stepped up their containment measures.”
SECO expects a “significant slowdown in economic growth globally and in Switzerland in the 2021/22 winter period”. But economy recovery is “not, however, expected to come to standstill in the medium term”.
In calendar and seasonally adjusted term, Germany export rose 4.1% mom to EUR 121.3B in October. Imports rose 5.0% mom to EUR 108.5B. Trade surplus narrowed to EUR 12.5B, down from EUR 13.2B, below expectation of EUR 12.9B. Over the year, exports rose 8.1% yoy, while imports rose 17.3% yoy.
In calendar and seasonally adjusted term, exports were 3.8% higher than pre-pandemic level in February 2020. Imports were 13.5% higher.
China CPI accelerated to 2.3% yoy in November, up from 1.5% yoy, but below expectation of 2.5% yoy. That’s nonethless the highest level since August 2020. PPI slowed to 12.9% yoy, down from October’s 26-year high of 13.5% yoy, above expectation of 12.6%.
“As policies to stabilise prices and ensure supply have stepped up, the rapid surge in coal, metal and other energy and raw material prices has been initially contained, leading to a slowdown in PPI,” NBS senior statistician Dong Lijuan said in a statement accompanying the release.
According to the Japanese government’s Business Outlook Survey, conditions for all large corporations improved notably from 3.3 to 9.6 in Q4. That’s the second quarter of positive reading. Conditions for large non-manufacturing jumped sharply from 1.5 to 10.4. Meanwhile, conditions for large manufacturers improved slightly from 7.0 to 7.9.
Conditions for mid-sized companies also rose sharply from 0.2 to 10.7. Conditions for small companies rose from -18.0 to -3.0, but stayed negative for the 31st successive quarter.
“With the severe situation caused by the impact of virus infections gradually easing, the survey results showed that (the economy) has been picking up, although some fields remain weak,” a government official told reporters.
New Zealand Manufacturing sales dropped -2.2% qoq, or NZD 674m in Q3. When adjusted for seasonal effects, 10 of the 13 manufacturing industries had lower volumes of sales in the quarter.
The largest industry movements were: metal products (-17%), petroleum and coal products (-13%), transport equipment, machinery, and equipment (-8.8%).
“Despite sales falls in several construction related manufacturing industries, increased prices for meat and dairy cushioned the blow for total manufacturing values,” business statistics manager Evie Rolinson-Purchase said.
BoC kept overnight rate target unchanged at effective lower bound of 0.25% as widely expected. Bank rate and deposit rate were held at 0.50% and 0.25% respectively.
Also, the forward guidance on interest rate is maintained. BoC is “committed to holding the policy interest rate at the effective lower bound until economic slack is absorbed so that the 2 percent inflation target is sustainably achieved”. And, “this happens sometime in the middle quarters of 2022”.
BoC said recent data suggested that economy had “considerable momentum” into Q4. But, “the devastating floods in British Columbia and uncertainties arising from the Omicron variant could weigh on growth by compounding supply chain disruptions and reducing demand for some service”. BoC expected CPI inflation to remain elevated in the first half of 2022 and ease back towards 2 percent in the second half of the year.
ECB Governing Council member Martins Kazaks said in an interview that the PEPP emergency asset purchase program would still end as scheduled in March, despite Omicron.
“At the current moment, we don’t know how the omicron variant will develop,” Kazaks said. “Unless it spills over into significant and large negative revisions to the outlook for growth, I don’t see that March — which the market has been expecting for some time and which we’ve been communicating in the past — should be changed.”
“At the moment we simply know too little about omicron,” he said. “I see it important to remain data-driven and make our decisions step by step. So react to the data, rather than preempt decisions when uncertainty is way too high.”
“If in February we see that it’s painful then of course we can change our views and that’s the issue of flexibility,” he said. “In my view, it’s possible both to restart PEPP or increase the envelope if it turns out to be necessary.”
On inflation, Kazaks said, “to exactly what level will it land in 2023-24, of course, there’s lots of uncertainty.” Nevertheless, “my baseline remains that it slides to below 2%.”
With a light economic calendar, main focus will be on BoC monetary policy decision today. No change is expected as the central has just stopped asset purchases back in October. Also, at that statement, BoC had pushed forward the timing for the first rate hike to “sometime in the middle quarters of 2022”, compared with previous estimate of “the second half of 2022”. Given the uncertainty surrounding Omicron, the central bank will more likely keep the rhetoric unchanged than not.
Some previews on BoC:
Canadian Dollar is in strong rebound this week, partly on return of risk-on sentiment, in tandem with rebound in oil prices. CAD/JPY’s pull back from 93.00 could have completed at 87.68, after hitting 61.8% retracement of 84.65 to 93.00 at 87.83.
Sustained trading above 55 day EMA (now at 89.78) will affirm this case and pave the way for retesting 93.00 high next. Also, given that CAD/JPY has defended medium term trend line support and 55 week EMA very well, the whole up trend from 73.80 could be ready to resume through 93.00 in this case.
Nevertheless, another fall and sustained trading below 87.83 will turn focus back to 84.65 key medium term structural support.
BoJ Deputy Governor Masayoshi Amamiya said in a speech that Japan’s inflation rate is still “far below the price stability target of 2 percent”. CPI is projected to be just around 1% even in fiscal 2023, the end of the current projection period. Therefore, BoJ will “persistently continue with powerful monetary easing” under the current QQE with yield curve control.
While central banks in US and Europe have recently started adjusting their monetary policy, the situation is different in Japan. Amamiya said, “given the price developments in Japan I have described, I think it makes sense that the Bank does not actually need to adjust its large-scale monetary easing at present”.
US exports rose 8.1% to USD 223.6B in October. Imports rose 0.9% to USD 290.7B. Trade deficit narrowed to USD -67.1B, from USD -81.4B, but widened than expectation of USD -66.9B. The figure reflected a decrease in goods deficit to USD -83.9B and increased in services surplus to USD 16.8B. Year-to-date, trade deficit increased 29.7% from the same period in 2020.
Canada exports rose 6.4% to reach a record CAD 56.2B in October. Exports grew in 8 of 11 product sections. The combined gains in exports of motor vehicles and parts and energy products accounted for almost 80% of the total growth.
Imports rose 5.3% to record CAD 54.1B. Gains were observed in 7 of 11 product sections. Motor vehicles and parts responsible for almost two-thirds of the monthly increase.
Trade surplus widened from CAD 1.4B to CAD 2.1B. well above expectation of CAD 1.6B. That’s also the largest surplus so far in 2021.
Germany ZEW Economic Sentiment dropped to 29.9 in December, down from 31.7, but beat expectation of 25.3. Current Situation index dropped sharply to -7.4, down from 12.5. That’s the first negative reading since June. Inflation Expectations dropped -19.0 pts to -33.3. 56.6% of experts expected inflation rate to decline in the next six months.
Eurozone ZEW Economic Sentiment rose from 25.9 to 26.8, above expectation of 23.5. Current Situation indicator dropped -13.9 pts to -2.3.
“The German economy is suffering noticeably from the latest developments in the COVID-19 pandemic. Persisting supply bottlenecks are weighing on production and retail trade. The decline in economic expectations shows that hopes for much stronger growth in the next six months are fading. Especially the earnings expectations of export-oriented and consumer-related industries are assessed more negatively,” comments ZEW President Professor Achim Wambach on current expectations.
According to the final revised data, Eurozone GDP grew 2.2% qoq, 3.0% yoy in Q3. GDP volumes remained -0.3% below pre-pandemic level in Q4 2019. Household consumption rose 4.1%. Government final consumption expenditure rose 0.3%. Gross fixed capital formation dropped -0.9%. Exports rose 1.2%. Imports rose 0.7%.
Household final consumption expenditure in Eurozone rose 2.1%. Government final expenditure rose 0.1%. Gross fixed capital formation dropped -0.2%. The contributions from external balance were positive while change in inventories was slightly negative.
EU GDP grew 2.1% qoq, 4.1% yoy. GDP volumes remained -0.1% below pre-pandemic level in Q4 2019. Austria (+3.8%) recorded the highest increase of GDP compared to the previous quarter, followed by France (+3.0) and Portugal (+2.9%). Lowest growth rates were observed in Romania and Slovakia (+0.4%), while GDP remained stable in Lithuania (0.0%).
In November in USD term, China exports rose 22.0% yoy, above expectation of 17.2% yoy. Imports rose 31.7% yoy, versus expectation of 19.5% yoy. Trade surplus narrowed to USD 71.7B, down from USD 84.5B, below expectation of USD 82.2B.
In CNY term, exports rose 16.6% yoy, below expectation of 17.2% yoy. Imports rose 26.0% yoy, above expectation of 9.4% yoy. Trade surplus narrowed to CNY 461B, down from CNY 546B, below expectation of CNY 575B.
RBNZ Assistant Governor Christian Hawkesby said today that the central bank would take “considered steps” in raising interest rate. He added, “we have more confidence around the fact that the labour market is tight and that’s going to build inflation pressures.”
Regarding the government’s plan to reopen borders from January, Hawkesby said “One risk we are conscious of in the very short term is that even when the borders reopen, that actually becomes easier for more Kiwis to leave the country than it does for foreigners to come in… So there is a potential that the labour market gets tighter before it gets looser”.
Also, “at the moment a higher currency in the short term will actually help us achieve our objectives more quickly because a strong currency will feed through a lower tradeables inflation and feed through to lower inflation, and we are managing inflation from the top side.”
Separately, outgoing Deputy Governor Geoff Bascand said inflation is “definitely got some persistence to it for the next 12 months”. He added, we’ll see the CPI moving along at 4 percent over the next year, but we think it will moderate over time, some of those things that have driven it up won’t last forever.”
Bascand also said, “we will keep reducing stimulus and do our part to stop inflation from getting momentum into it.”
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US CPI rose to 6.8% yoy, highest since 1982
US CPI rose 0.8% mom in November, above expectation of 0.7 % mom. For the 12-month period, CPI accelerated to 6.8% yoy, up from 6.2% yoy, matched expectations. That’s the highest rate since June 1982.
CPI core rose 0.5% mom, matched expectations. CPI core accelerated to 4.9% yoy, up from 4.6% yoy, matched expectations. Energy index rose 33.3% yoy. Both are highest level in at least 13 years.
Full release here.