A Fair Amount of Data Out But Most Markets Not Trading Because of Good Friday
March 29, 2024
The dollar has dipped so far today by 0.3% against the Mexican peso, 0.2% versus the New Zealand and Australian dollars, and 0.1% relative to the euro, yen and sterling. The Swiss franc and Canadian dollar are unchanged. Gold at $2,238 per ounce is close to all-time highs.
Share prices closed up 1.0% in China on stimulus hopes. Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.5%. Most of the world is observing Good Friday. Closures are widespread in Europe and also include Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, South Africa, India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia.
Today’s economic data release menu featured U.S. personal income, spending and PCE price deflator. Many other country price indicators also got reported, as did a wide range of monthly Japanese figures.
The U.S. February personal consumption expenditure price deflator went up 0.3% on month, a tad less than forecast, but upward revision of January’s result put the year-on-year PCE deflator’s at 2.5%, which just met analyst expectations and was 0.1 percentage point above the prior month’s 33-month low. Excluding food and energy, the core PCE deflator’s measured inflation rate edged down 0.1 percentage point to a new low for the move of 2.8%.
Although the 0.3% monthly rise personal income was a shade slower than forecast, personal consumption shot up by a 13-month high rate of 0.8% compared to January’s level. The U.S. savings rate consequently dropped by half a percentage point to 3.6%.
A separate U.S. data report was the preliminary U.S. merchandise trade deficit in February, which at $91.836 billion was the widest goods imbalance since April last year. Eliminating the trade deficit is among the top economic priorities of the MAGA movement.
Japanese retail sales in February jumped 1.5% on month (most in 2 years) and 4.6% on year (a 3-month high). Japanese industrial production followed a 6.7% plunge in the prior month with a 0.1% dip in February, prompting officials to classify its recent trend as “fluctuating indecisively and weakening overall.” Consumer price inflation in Tokyo excluding both food and energy slowed in March to a 13-month low of 2.9%. Housing starts (-8.2% year on year) and construction orders(-11.0%) in February were their most negative in three and thirteen months, respectively. Finally, Japan’s jobless rate rose to a 5-month high of 2.6% last month.
French consumer price inflation slowed more than forecast to a 30-month low of 2.3% in March from 3.0% in February and 6.3% in February 2023. A 5.5% on-year drop of French producer prices in February was the most deflationary reading in 172 months.
Italian CPI inflation this month moved above 1.0% for the first time since October with a reading of 1.3%. Such had peaked at 11.8% in October 2022.
Polish CPI inflation of 1.9% in March was the lowest in three years and sharply below February’s 2.8% reading, not to mention 18.4% touched in February of 2023.
Slovenian CPI inflation of 3.6% in March was the most since 4.2% in December but well down from 11.0% in July-August 2022.
Belgian producer prices were 8.9% lower than a year earlier in February, their 10th deflationary reading in a row. Belgian PPI inflation peaked in April 2022 at 40.8%.
Greek PPI inflation, which also peaked at 48.8% in April 2022, was negative 4.3% last month. And in Bulgaria, producer prices were 9.3% lower than in February 2023. That was the smallest sub-zero reading in nine months.
Copyright 2024, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
Tags: Good Friday stock market closures, Japanese retail sales and industrial production, U.S. personal consumption and PCE price deflator
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