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A bad week for US numbers.
Continuing employment claims hit a new 19-year high and help-wanted dipped. The Chicago Fed index was a touch softer, both new and existing home sales fell back from the global warming boost of earlier months (though the three month total is a very lofty $1.3 trillion, 12.5% of GDP).
Durable goods were softer, ex-def capital goods orders are stagnating at 1997 levels.
The SIA book:bill was above unity for once, but Intel told us it does not use such measures, revealingly, because the 'window for cancellation' is too large.
U of Michigan confidence was revised lower. M3 slowed again and the budget is blowing out big time.
Then there was GDP.
GDP is a large, intrinsically useless aggregate, telling us about net consumption, with a little bit of arbitrarily chosen investment thrown in and the wasteful state included, but its components can be revealing.
Subject to the circa 1% revision downwards of the base which the state payrolls and plunging tax receipts are signalling is due, the headline looks pretty impressive.
However, the $168 billion nominal GDP advance was all down to Stores, Floors and Wars:-
A $79 billion smaller inventory drop
$16 billion more spent on residential RE and $19 billion more on 'housing services'
$51 billion extra on Angry Leviathan (government up 11.3% annualized)
Hardly the healthiest mix.
Fixed non-residential investment fell again (off 8% annualized), as did Equipment & Software (EQ&SW)spending.
A year ago there was $2.45 of EQ&SW spending to every dollar of 'national defense consumption' - -now there is only $2 - - Captain Bubble gives way to Sergeant Bilko!
A year ago Non-RE fixed investment was 73% of Leviathan: now it is only 60%
A year ago all fixed investment exceeded the BEA measure of capital consumption by $448 billion, now it is only $248 billion - a 45% drop in this crudest measure of new net investment.
Another spendthrift, Statist set of numbers - no cause for cheer here which stocks and the dollar seemed to realize.
Then again, we now that precious little of this added to wealth - as the abysmal rollcall of corporate reporting showed us. Indeed, this last week had the disease showing up not just in Tech, but also in those sectors of the economy not related to medical care, the MI-complex and house building.
UK GDP was estimated at u pa measly 0.1% - with services up 2% and production 'is estimated to fall sharply once more'
No surprise since engineering turnover in the three months to February was off 33% annualized, led by a 50% annualized drop in exports.
Still, mortgage lending hit a record and approvals are up by a quarter from last year so the BoE will still be paralysed as we borrow ourselves to beggary.
Retail sales may have taken a pause, but the value of spending on household goods and clothes are both up by double digit amounts on a year ago.
In France and Italy business confidence was up, in Germany it slipped. M3 eased a touch and recent moths show a clear deceleration.
The Riksbank raised rates, Korea and S Africa warned of rises, Thaialnd and Brazil have temporarily stopped cutting and Poland did less than expected. The SNB at first said it would ease if Swissy strengthened further, then Roth told us that would be a foolish policy - all clear there, then!
Quote of the week, for sheer arrogance and hypocrisy, has to go to US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick who, the Asia Times reports, described China as a "running dog of European imperialism", after Beijing's move to raise its first trade dispute at the WTO against the US over the protectionist and unilateral steel tariffs it imposed.