Global Markets

A sanguine Monday and Tuesday were followed by a ‘run for the hills’ mentality mid-week as fears — never that far below the surface — bubbled up to send stocks down and the U.S. dollar up in a flight to safety. All equity indexes followed here swooned on the week except the S&P/TSX Composite and the Bolsa. Losses ranged from 0.3 percent for the Nasdaq to 5.5 percent for the Taiex. But all indexes are below year end levels. The primary reasons for the declines last week are two —

• The growing worries about the fiscal health of Europe’s weakest economies triggered a worldwide flight to the safety of the U.S. dollar and Treasuries. Confidence waned in European governments’ ability to repay their debts, a combination of fears over Greece, a troubled auction of Portugal’s debt and mounting fears that Spain’s much bigger economy appears to be in deeper trouble than either Greece’s or Portugal’s. In a relatively short time span, investor fears which had been limited to Greece have now spread elsewhere and to equity markets.
• The impact of declining sentiment in Europe was compounded in the U.S. by poor employment data, with the number of American workers claiming jobless benefits rising unexpectedly last week. The data are noisy and may be affected by the bad winter weather. But there were 6 percent more new claims last month than in December. This is a great leading indicator and it is rising again.

In the periphery, investors are restive about the end of quantitative easing programs with the UK QE program on hold and the U.S. ending its credit easing initiative soon. Investors fear that the markets will come under intense pressure without this stimulus. Markets now must learn to live without the government stimulus.

Global Stock Market Recap

Europe and the UK

After two robust days, equities sagged as growing fears over the health of Europe’s weakest economies rocked global markets Thursday, sparking sharp drops in shares on the continent and a worldwide flight to the safety of the US dollar and Treasuries. The impact of declining European sentiment was compounded in the US by poor employment data, with the number of American workers claiming jobless benefits rising unexpectedly last week. In the space of weeks, investor fears that had initially been confined to Greece have spread to Portugal and Spain, and spilled over into equity markets in the US and the UK.  

Other disappointing economic news emanated from Germany where both manufacturers' orders and industrial production plummeted in December. And Friday’s U.S. employment report which featured the Bureau of Labor Statistics annual revisions and new data tables showed that employment dropped only by 20,000 in January — but analysts had expected employment to be unchanged. The unemployment rate however dropped and offered investors some positive news. Although equities continued to be down, the decline eased.

The FTSE, CAC and DAX were down for the fourth consecutive week, losing 2.5 percent, 4.7 percent and 3.1 percent respectively.

Bank of England puts quantitative easing on hold

As expected, the Bank of England kept its policy interest rate at a record low of 0.5 percent where it has been since March 2009. At the same time, they announced a pause in the quantitative easing program at Stg200 billion but left the door open to further expansion if required. The British economy barely crawled out of recession in the fourth quarter with the preliminary estimate for GDP inching up only 0.1 percent on the quarter.

The monetary policy committee has been explicit that decisions about its quantitative easing program should be made in the months in which its Inflation Report is released. The next report is due this week on February 10. And despite inflation registering above expectation gains, there are still substantial downward pressures to medium-term inflation given the large output gap.

In its statement, the MPC noted that household spending appears to have picked up some with sluggish spending partly reflecting temporary factors. The MPC also said that the decline in business investment appears to be easing. But the considerable stimulus from monetary policy should support activity going forward.

Britain’s government bond markets remained an oasis of calm on Thursday even as the Bank of England suspended its program of creating money to purchase assets. The quantitative easing initiative, launched last March, was unprecedented in the Bank’s 300-year history, and is aimed to boost the stock of money and spending in the economy. There had been fears that the Bank’s decision to keep interest rates at 0.5 percent and hold the creation of money at £200bn would put upward pressure on gilt yields because the biggest purchaser in the market was leaving the table. But investors had expected the Bank’s well-signaled move and did not indicate concern at the government’s ability to finance debt in the future. Ten-year government bond yields fell on Thursday, having briefly spiked higher after the noon announcement.

European Central Bank

As universally expected the European Central Bank left its key interest rate at a record low 1 percent. While the ECB isn't expected to raise interest rates before the fourth quarter, it has started to unwind its emergency lending programs. In December the ECB tightened the terms of its final tender of 12-month loans and said it will discontinue its six-month loans after March. But the Bank is still lending commercial banks as much money as they need at 1 percent in an effort to get credit flowing through the economy again. Along with the continuing rise in unemployment, the fiscal problems of Greece will complicate the ECB's efforts to return to normal monetary policy.

At his press conference, ECB president Jean Claude Trichet hinted that in March further steps would be announced to implement the ECB’s “exit strategy” under which it is gradually unwinding emergency measures to support financial markets. He also tried to boost confidence in eurozone public finances while keeping up pressure on Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain (PIGS) to bring spiraling deficits under control. He said that the overall eurozone fiscal deficit compared “very flatteringly” with those in other countries. He cited International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts showing the U.S. deficit would hit 10 percent of gross domestic product this year, compared with about 6 percent in the eurozone. Other industrialized countries would be even higher.

However, amid rising investor nervousness about the risks faced by Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece — where deficits have spiraled way above the eurozone average — Mr Trichet said it was extremely important that individual countries had clear fiscal exit strategies. Greece won important support from Mr Trichet, who said fresh measures announced this week to boost revenues and cut taxes were steps in the right direction.

Asia/Pacific

Stocks swooned as investors fretted about the strength of the global recovery. Stocks here were infected by decline’s elsewhere, following them down at week’s end. The issues In Asia were the same — concerns about European sovereign credit and weaker than expected U.S. weekly jobless claims. And in Japan, the strengthening yen against the dollar also negatively affected market sentiment. Sinking commodity prices took mining and metal stocks lower.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index plunged 3.3 percent on Friday after U.S. and other markets in the region tumbled amid increasing concerns that the global economic recovery might get derailed. And Taiwan’s stocks slumped to a five-month low and the currency weakened as European fiscal concerns eroded investor appetite for emerging market assets. Analysts say that Taiwan shares are vulnerable during periods such as this one. They said that Taiwan has more institutional investors and ‘they tend to panic easily over news.’ The Taiex was down 5.5 percent on the week and is down 11.8 percent in 2010.

Major indexes including those in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore have declined for the last four weeks while those in Japan, India, China and South Korea have dropped for three. On the week, losses ranged from 0.7 percent for the SET to 5.5 percent for the Taiex.

Reserve Bank of Australia

The Reserve Bank of Australia surprised analysts and left its key interest rate unchanged at 3.75 percent. Virtually all analysts had expected the Bank to increase its policy rate a fourth time to 4.0 percent. The RBA was the first of the major industrial countries to raise rates. By contrast, the U.S., UK and EMU have kept their lending rates at historic lows. Australia skirted the global recession thanks to government cash handouts and infrastructure spending. In its statement, the RBA said that the risk of serious economic contraction had passed and that it was appropriate to hold policy steady for now. The Bank indicated however, that it was likely that monetary policy would be adjusted further to ensure that inflation remains under control.

GDP was up for the third consecutive quarter in the third quarter — fourth quarter data will not be available until March 3 local time. Employers have added over 130,000 jobs between September and December while annual house prices experienced the largest increase since 2007. And reports may show that inflation will pick up in 2010. The RBA favored inflation measure — so-called annual weighted-median gauge of core inflation — jumped by 3.6 percent in the three months through December. The measure has been above the Bank’s inflation target range of between 2 percent and 3 percent since the third quarter of 2007.

Australia’s dollar tumbled to a six-week low and Asian stocks pared gains after the announcement sparked concern at the economy’s ability to withstand higher borrowing costs. Business confidence fell to a six-month low, a report showed today, and Woolworths Ltd., the country’s biggest retailer, warned last week that rate increases would hurt consumers.

In its Monetary Policy Report released later in the week, the RBA said that economic growth will continue to accelerate even if policy makers are forced to raise the benchmark interest rate by another three quarters of a percentage point. Although the official numbers will not be available for another month, the RBA said that the economy will be growing at an annual pace of 3.25 percent in the three months through December 2010, up from 2 percent last quarter. Officials based their forecast on an assumption that the overnight cash rate target will climb to 4.5 percent this year.

The statement noted that while increased hiring and an annual 13.6 percent surge in house prices last quarter helped stoke consumer confidence, which jumped in January by the most in six months, households are taking a more cautious approach to their spending then was the case a few years ago.

Currencies

Euro continued to lose ground against the U.S. dollar dropping to levels not seen in over eight months as worries about fiscal problems sent investors to the safe haven of the dollar. The euro suffered as the cost of insuring Portuguese government debt against default hit a record high, while the cost of insuring against Greek and Spanish default also rose.

The euro’s slide was given added impetus by comments from ECB president Jean Claude Trichet in his post meeting press conference. The euro sold off as Mr Trichet maintained a hard line over the European Union’s stability pact. Mr Trichet approved Greece’s plan to rein in its fiscal deficit and called for full respect for the EU stability and growth pact, which requires government deficits of less than 3 percent of gross domestic product. He stated that the ECB was inflexible in defense of the stability pact. Concerns over these budget problems wilted risk appetite and boosted both the dollar and the yen.

Both the Australian and New Zealand dollars (aka Antipodean currencies) were hit as Australian retail sales surprisingly tumbled in December while New Zealand unemployment surged to a 10-year high in the fourth quarter. Traders continued to be disappointed that the RBA did not increase interest rates at their Tuesday meeting as well. Falling commodity prices exacerbated the declines which spread to the Canadian dollar as well.

Selected currencies — weekly results

Indicator scoreboard

EMU

January manufacturing PMI reading was 52.4 from its flash estimate of 52.0 and its highest in two years. Output expanded for the sixth month in a row and at its fastest pace since August 2007. Capital and intermediate goods producers saw the most marked gains but consumer goods output rose too, albeit at a slower rate than in December. Meantime new orders growth was the strongest since June 2007 with exports running at their best pace since August that year. Backlogs were also sharply higher. Nonetheless, job losses continued to mount as employment contracted for the 20th consecutive month and at a more rapid clip than the prior month. The survey also suggests that price pressures are continuing to build. In particular, purchase prices climbed at their steepest pace in 16 months reflecting mainly the rising cost of metals and energy. Regionally, among the larger states France fared the best with its national PMI weighing in at 55.4, up 0.7 points from December. The German PMI was up a point at 53.7 and Italy edged up 0.9 points to a still subdued 51.7. However, there remain some notable discrepancies in terms of economic performance with declines in output in Greece, Ireland and Spain.

December producer prices excluding construction edged up 0.1 percent and declined 2.9 percent from December a year ago. December's increase was the third monthly advance in a row and reflected small gains in most of the key sectors. Intermediates, capital goods, durable and nondurable consumer goods all edged up 0.1 percent. The only exception was energy where prices were down 0.2 percent and down 2.6 percent on the year. Excluding energy, the PPI was unchanged on the month and down 2.3 percent on the year after a 3.1 percent annual drop in mid-quarter.

December retail sales were unchanged on the month and down 0.5 percent on the year. November retail sales were revised substantially — from a drop of 1.2 percent to a decline of 0.5 percent. Food & drinks registered a 0.3 percent monthly increase while non-food demand dropped 0.2 percent, its fourth monthly drop in the last five months. Regionally the results were very mixed. On the bright side, volumes posted solid monthly gains in Belgium and Germany (both 0.8 percent), Spain (0.9 percent), France (1.2 percent), Austria (1.6 percent) and Slovakia and Slovenia (both 0.9 percent). However, by contrast there were particularly hefty falls in Portugal (2.8 percent) and Malta (5.6 percent).

Germany

December retail sales excluding autos were up 0.8 percent and were down 2.5 percent on the year. The December pick-up was the third monthly advance in the last four months but for the fourth quarter as a whole, purchases were 0.2 percent weaker than the previous period. The detailed annual growth data show that the underlying position was even softer than the headline numbers imply. While food sales were a relatively mild 0.5 percent lower on the year, non-food demand was down 3.3 percent. Within non-food, weakness was especially apparent in clothing & shoes (down 2.2 percent). Other hefty declines were seen in mail order (down 11.7 percent) and in the other goods sector (down 7.8 percent).

December manufacturing orders plummeted 2.3 percent after jumping a revised 2.8 percent in November (the number had been revised upward mid-month from 0.2 percent). On the year, orders are down 8.4 percent. Fourth quarter orders were up just 0.7 percent on the previous period when they surged by 8.8 percent. Both domestic and overseas orders declined. Domestic orders slid 1.4 percent reflecting a 2.1 percent drop in basics and a 2.0 percent decline in capital goods. Together, weakness here was more than enough to offset an otherwise solid 4.9 percent bounce in consumer and durable goods. Foreign orders dropped 3.2 percent from mid-quarter with eurozone buying down 3.5 percent and non-EMU demand off 3.0 percent. Again orders for consumer and durable goods were relatively firm, down just 0.9 percent but basics sank 4.4 percent and capital goods dropped 2.9 percent.

December industrial production excluding construction plunged a hefty 2.6 percent and was down 7.1 percent on the year. The nosedive was driven by a 4.3 percent monthly slump in intermediates but capital goods fared little better, declining by 3.4 percent. Consumer goods production expanded 2.0 percent on the month but even this was decidedly lopsided with nondurables up 2.0 percent but durables down 1.2 percent. Energy output was down 0.2 percent from mid-quarter and construction dropped 2.6 percent. Overall manufacturing output declined 2.8 percent, easily more than wiping out November's otherwise respectable 1.0 percent advance.

France

December producer price index was up 0.2 percent but down 4.5 percent when compared with last year. Prices have now increased for three consecutive months. Most areas saw prices little changed from November. The only notable exceptions were coking refining products and transport materials where charges were up a relatively steep 0.8 percent on the month. The only decline was in electrical equipment, information technology & machines where prices slipped just 0.1 percent from their respective November levels.

December merchandise trade deficit was €4.3 billion after recording a €5.0 billion deficit in November. For the year 2009, the deficit was €43.0 billion, down from €55.1 billion in 2008. The latest monthly shortfall reflected a 2.1 percent monthly slide in nominal imports as exports were unchanged from their November level. Despite a gradual trend improvement in recent months, exports are still nearly 5 percent below their July peak.

United Kingdom

January output prices were up 0.4 percent and were up 3.8 percent on the year. Petroleum products once again did the bulk of the damage, rising 1.7 percent on the month and jumping nearly 6 percentage points on the year to a 20.6 percent annual rate. The only real area of weakness was textiles & clothing where prices fell 1.2 percent on the month and are still 0.2 percent lower on the year. Core output prices were up 0.3 percent and 2.5 percent on the year. Input prices jumped 2.0 percent and are up 8.4 percent on the year. The January advance was the fourth in a row and largely due to a spike in oil prices which climbed 5.3 percent from year-end. Over the year a near-71 percent surge in oil costs added more than 10 percentage points to the annual change in the headline index. Other upside pressure last month came mainly from imported parts & equipment and other imported materials where prices rose 1.1 percent on the month.

Asia/Pacific

Australia

December seasonally adjusted merchandise trade deficit widened to A$2.25 billion from A$1.7 billion in November. On the month, exports were up 3.5 percent while imports jumped 5.8 percent. Non-rural goods exports were up 5 percent with the coal, coke & briquettes component up 10.0 percent. Metals (excluding non-monetary gold) were up 25 percent and the other mineral fuels component was up $13 percent. Rural goods exports were up 7 percent and non-monetary gold dropped 4 percent. Imports of intermediate and other merchandise goods were up 11 percent with the fuels & lubricants component up 26 percent. Capital goods imports were up 7 percent, non-monetary gold jumped 51 percent but consumption goods edged down by 1 percent.

December retail sales surprised and dipped 0.7 percent after increasing 1.5 percent in November and 0.3 percent in October. On the year, retail sales were up 2.1 percent. Sales were down 3.5 percent for department stores, down 1.9 percent for clothing, footwear & other personal accessory retailing, down 1.3 percent for food retailing while household goods retailing slipped by 0.3 percent. However sales in cafes, restaurants & takeaway food services were up 2.5 percent while other retailing remained flat. In seasonally adjusted volume terms, retail turnover was up 1.1 percent in the December quarter 2009. This compares with a decline of 0.7 percent in the September quarter.

Americas

Canada

January employment was up 43,000 while the unemployment rate declined to 8.3 percent from a revised 8.4 percent in December. The employment increase reflected a 53,700 advance in the private sector, and a 13,400 gain in the public sector, partially offset by a 24,000 decline in the number of self-employed. However the jobs gain was dominated by part-time positions which jumped 41,500 on the month. Full-time workers only increased by 1,400. Service sector jobs were up by 66,100 while the goods producing sector shed 23,100 positions. Within the former, the most significant gains were registered by business, building & other support services (34,400) and trade (23,400) with smaller contributions from finance, insurance, real estate & leasing (14,300) and accommodation & food services (14,100). However, some service sector groups posted losses — professional, scientific & technical services lost 22,400 jobs and the other services category was down by 10,000. Within the decline in overall goods producing jobs, manufacturing was down 15,700. Positions in agriculture declined 10,400 and there were minor declines in utilities (2,200) and construction (400). The only area to see an increase in employment was natural resources (5,700).

Bottom line

Three central banks met and left their policies unchanged. One bank — the Reserve Bank of Australia disappointed. Virtually all analysts expected them to increase their policy rate for the fourth time and instead they left it unchanged at 3.75 percent. The Bank of England and the European Central Bank kept their interest rates at 0.5 percent and 1.0 percent respectively. The BoE left its quantitative easing ceiling unchanged at Stg200 billion.

Tensions increased and equities plunged as investors once again became risk averse thanks to the fiscal mess in Greece, Spain and Portugal. And U.S. employment data did not help, nor did German manufacturing orders or industrial production both of which sank in December. Investors ran for cover to the U.S. dollar.

Next week on the economic data side, industrial production and industrial output along with the long awaited fourth quarter flash gross domestic product data from the eurozone. And everyone will continue to monitor the unfolding fiscal drama in Europe.

Looking Ahead: February 8 through February 12, 2010

Anne D Picker is the author of International Economic Indicators and Central Banks.