International Recap - Market Analysis for Mar 11th, 2019


As we start the week and look at retail sales this morning for domestic data, there were a few key economic releases from international markets that continue to point towards soft global growth. 

First, Japan machine tool orders fell by 29.3% year over year. 

Japan Machine Tool Orders Year over Year:Source: Bloomberg

Over in Europe, German industrial production fell by 3.3% year over year. The declines in German industrial production are the sharpest since the 2009 global financial crisis. This update should not be read as a forecast for a recession or a global meltdown such as 2008, but it should be understood as a counterpoint against the commonly held belief that global growth is "bottoming."

Other than headlines about new stimulus (which are not going to be effective), I have not seen any data points that firmly suggest Asia and Europe are bottoming. 

German Industrial Production Year over Year:Source: Bloomberg

In China, vehicle sales plunged 13.8% year over year after new credit and loan data missed expectations over the weekend. 

China Vehicle Sales Year over Year:Source: Trading Economics

This note was just a very quick flash of the new data that came out over the weekend and last night/this morning. 

I will have a more informative update out later this week, but I often do these quick recaps just to get the new data out. 

In summary, some key economic data points from overseas are not suggesting global growth is bottoming despite the headlines and hopes of more stimulus. Perhaps growth will bottom, and if it shows up in the data, I will certainly call that out, but I will not speculate on a bottom in growth based on headlines of stimulus that are unlikely to be effective for various reasons in which we can dive more in-depth in a future note. 

Eric 



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