Daily update
Daily update
- The Eurozone and assorted components release preliminary fourth quarter GDP guesses. A small drop in growth is expected, led by Germany. The German economy was poorly positioned for global consumers’ spending focus shifting from goods to having fun. Any drop will provoke media hysteria about the nonsensical term “technical recession”. Falling GDP is more probable when countries have falling populations, and in the real world no one differentiates –0.1% from 0.0% growth.
- UK BRC shop prices marked a sharp slowdown in retailers’ inflation. Profit-led inflation is ending as consumers rebel and refuse to pay inflated prices. Official consumer prices will not slow as much (discounts from supermarkets’ two-tier pricing structures are included in shop price numbers, but not in consumer price inflation).
- Today’s US JOLTS labor data includes a subset of job vacancies. Only externally advertised vacancies are counted. As job hopping declines, more and more vacancies are filled internally. The relationship of externally advertised vacancies to unemployment is more or less back to normal.
- The IMF’s World Economic Outlook publication is more a media event than an economic event. IMF economists have no special insight, and the length of the publishing process means views are often out of date relative to what markets are pricing.