Focus on European Data Releases and Lessening Covid Restrictions in China on this U.S. Memorial Day
May 30, 2022
Following Friday’s strong advance in U.S. equities, share prices in the Pacific Rim went up today by a sharp 2.1% in Hong Kong and Taiwan, 2.2% in Japan, 1.9% in India, 1.5% in Australia and 1.2% in South Korea. There have also been gains so far of 0.6% in the German and French stock markets and 0.5% in Italy’s, but the British Ftse is marginally softer.
Ten-year sovereign debt yields jumped 12 basis points in Italy, 11 basis points in Spain, 10 bps in Germany, 9 bps in France and 7 bps in Great Britain.
The dollar has dropped 0.4% against the euro, 0.3% versus the yuan and Canadian dollar, 6.3% relative to the Russian ruble, and 0.2% versus the kiwi but also has alternatively risen 1.0% against the Turkish lira and 0.2% vis-a-vis the Swiss franc and Japanese yen.
Ahead of a meeting later this week of OPEC oil ministers, the price of WTI climbed 0.3%. Gold is steady.
Economic sentiment in the euro area inched 0.1 point higher in May to a 2-month high of 105.0 but remained well below last July’s crest of 117.7, depressed still by elevated inflation and Russian military aggression. Sentiment in industry weakened further to a 14-month low, while construction, retail, and services improved to 2 to 3-month highs. The preliminary reading for consumer confidence, a 3-month high of -21.1, was not revised.
Among price data reported today,
- German import price inflation accelerated half a percentage point to its highest reading (31.7%) since the first OPEC oil price shock in 1974.
- Icelandic CPI inflation of 7.6% in May was the most in 145 months.
- Belgian CPI inflation rose 0.7 percentage points to a 477-month high of 9.0%.
- Spanish CPI inflation climbed to 8.7% in May from 8.3% in April but remained lower than March’s 9.8%, which had represented close to a four-decade high.
- CPI inflation in May of 39.3% in Iran was the most since last October.
- Austrian PPI inflation of 21.5% in April was the most in over tw decades and up from 4.6% a year earlier.
- Greek producer price inflation set another record high of 48.8% in April.
- Italian PPI inflation settled back to 35.8% last month after hitting its highest level ever (36.9%) in the prior month.
Swedish GDP contracted last quarter at a quarterly pace of 0.8%, twice the initial estimate. This resulted in a year-on-year increase of 3.0%, down from 5.2% in the final quarter of 2021.
The Swiss KOF leading economic index fell 6.2 index points to a 22-month low in May.
April retail sales figures were reported for several economies. Sales in Ireland advanced 3.8% on month and 6.1% (most since January) in year-on-year terms. A 3% monthly drop in Portuguese retail sales slashed the 12-month rate of increase to 4.6% from 12.8% in March. Danish sales went up 1.7% on month but just 1.2% on year. A 2.4% on-year drop in Norwegian sales was the tenth sub-zero result in a row.
Copyright 2022, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
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