Saturday, October 30, 2010

Economics 30/10/10: Euro area growth forecast

Updating leading indicator data for Euro area growth from Eurocoin:
Having posted bang on forecast for September (forecast was 0.34 and this is what the final number came in at), I missed October turning point. The latest uplift suggests growth of 0.9% in Q3, but I am not convinced for a number of reasons:
  • Growth in the lead indicator is driven strongly by the EU Comm survey of business expectations which has been trending strongly up since Feb 2010. In the mean time, PMIs-based expectations metric is showing a renewed expectation for a slowdown.
  • Consumer confidence surveys are flat.
  • Exports (to August) are down
So I am still sticking to Q3/Q4 growth at 0.2-0.25%

No comments: