By CaixaBank research team, in Barcelona | Economic slowdown is difficult to stabilise within a context of rising uncertainty that hampers aggregate demand. Economic activity slowed down in the first quarter of the year with negative growth of 0.1% year-on-year, as shown by the detailed figures for gross domestic product in the first quarter. Private [...]
The Italian elephant in the euro room
MADRID | Unmistakably, the reflection that the Italian economic indicators are mirroring should look very familiar to Spanish analysts. The slowdown wave is reaching core Europe too, by the way, as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported this week: the European economies, whether using the ill-established common currency or one on their own, [...]
Italy’s GDP worse than forecast
Yields on Italian 10-year bonds will keep under tension after the latest economic data brought investors a negative surprise. The country’s GDP suffered a further contraction of -2.5 percent year on year in the second quarter of 2012: the previous figure had been -1.4 percent and market expectations had pointed at -2.3 percent. Industrial production [...]
In China the mountains might not be that high anymore
BEIJING | The option that Chinese economy is in a more severe slowdown than the one officially acknowledged has always been in the international community's subconscious. Economists and experts have been aware of a well known, but not so evident, truth where the usually optimistic official data might not be completely reliable. The debate is [...]
UK’s construction sector crumbles a further 18pc, but not to worry
LONDON |Â The second release of UK GDP figures shed some light on the surprisingly large decline in GDP in the first quarter. The revised figures showed an even larger drop in the construction sector, with -18% or a -1.3% contribution to quarterly GDP growth. Not to worry, said JP Morgan in Monday’s note. Even if [...]
Wednesday’s chart: the euro zone holds its GDP, Germany willing
It was Germany, with a 0.5 percent growth of GDP in the first quarter of this year, that helped the euro zone avoid enter technical recession territory. GDP remained stable in both the euro are and the EU during January to March of 2012 compared with the previous quarter, according to flash estimates published by [...]
Comparing pension systems in Spain, Germany: getting closer
MADRID | The reform of the pension system in Spain is planned to help to improve the outlook for sustainability of the system by reducing pension expenditure as a share of GDP. It should weigh in towards reducing the public deficit, too. At BBVA, analysts have drawn some basic comparisons between the Spanish and the [...]
Thursday’s graph: the UK, a view from Madrid
International Financial Analysts AFI in Madrid added their opinion in agreement with more or less everyone else: the mix of relaxed  monetary policy, fiscal retrenchment and depreciation of the sterling pound that has been engineered in Downing Street by the Coalition government isn’t working. In fact, AFI said the UK’s is the economy with the [...]
The euro claims another victim: the UK
LONDON | Already in the mood to dismiss 2012 as a lost year for the UK economy? Analysts in the City of London waived as a non-event the preliminary GDP estimate of this year’s first quarter, released Wednesday by the office of national statistics, which showed that the British economy had contracted by -0.2%. The negative [...]
Monday’s graph: improvement in gross debt ratio of Spain’s private sector
International Financial Analysts Afi brought to our attention this chart from 2011 financial accounts in Spain, which confirm that ratio of gross debt (loans and different security prices) of households and businesses in Spain has dropped by 13.5 percentage points of GDP. The figure is now 216pc, down from the maximum levels reached during the [...]
