Summary for the 8th of August


The industrial production in Germany fell by 1.5 percent from May to June adjusted for seasonal fluctuations. The decline was larger than expected by the financial markets. The energy and construction sectors showed an increase, otherwise Germany’s production fell by 1.8 percent.

Overall, the data showed that the industrial production for the second quarter of 2019 fell by 1.9 percent from the previous quarter, which would mean that Germany’s GDP would be declining in the second quarter. The energy and construction sectors had showed solid growth, public spending and investments expected also to show solid growth after a weak first quarter as well as net exports. These variables might be enough to keep the GDP growth positive in the second quarter.

China’s balance of trade for July showed a 3.3 percent export increase from July 2018. The financial markets were expecting a decline of 1 percent, after the -1.3 percent decline year on year from June 2018 to June 2019. Imports fell by -5.6 percent year on year July, still better than expected and better than the previous month, though this indicated that the domestic demand had slowed down.

UK’s house prices fell by 0.2 percent from May to June, according to Halifax. The markets were expecting a growth of 0.3 percent, same level as the data released by Nationwide. Halifax showed an increase for house prices by 2.6 percent year on year while Nationwide’s numbers were 0.3 percent. Brexit uncertainty had put a weight on the housing market while high employment rate and low interest rates kept the housing prices up.

The Chinese central bank set the official reference rate for the Chinese currency at 7.0039 yuan per dollar on Thursday. For the first time since 2008 the rate was set to be above 7.

Indices for 08.08.2019.
Dow: -0.1% (7th of August)
S&P 500: +0.1% (7th of August)
Nasdaq: +0.4% (7th of August)
Nikkei: +0.5%  (8th of August)
Chinese indices: +1.2% (8th of August)
STOXX Europe 600 Index: +1.66% (8th of August)

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