Monday, August 17, 2009

Batting 500 on G7 growth

A simple recovery story can be told by looking at second quarter GDP. 6/7 G7 countries have reported their numbers and three are positive and three are negative. In the positive area are Germany, France, and Japan while the US, UK, and Italy are down for the second quarter. Canada has not yet reported. Granted Japan and Germany were the worse performers for the first quarter, but there has been a strong comeback to positive territory. Japan is still Asian focused, so it recovery tells us about the robust recovery in Asia. Germany is export driven especially for capital goods, so an improvement here suggests that investments are being made around the world. This is a positive sign for global growth and should be Euro positive if the trends continue. (We have to discount Italy given its ongoing economic problems.)

No comments: