The leading index (LI), which monitors the economic performance in advance, rose 2% yoy in Aug (2.3% yoy in Jul). The coincident index (CI), which measures the current economic activity, up 1.6% yoy from 0.2% yoy in Jul while the lagging index increased 3.5% yoy in Aug (2.3% yoy in Jul). Conversely, the level of Diffusion Index for both LI and CI showed below 50% for the first time in 2012. (Department of Statistics)
Vietnam: Inflation accelerates in October for a second month
Vietnam’s inflation accelerated for a second month, reducing the scope to ease monetary policy and spur an economy set to grow at the slowest pace in 13 years. Consumer prices rose 7% in October from a year earlier after climbing 6.48% in September, the General Statistics Office said in Hanoi yesterday. The median of four estimates in a Bloomberg News survey was 6.75%. Prices gained 0.85% from the previous month. The nation will maintain a tight, flexible monetary and fiscal policy in 2013 and lower interest rates in line with inflation, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told legislators at the National Assembly in Hanoi this week.
China: Industry gauge rises as easing prospects abate
A Chinese manufacturing index rose and economists have pared forecasts for cuts in interest rates and bank reserve requirements as confidence grows that the world’s second-biggest economy is stabilising. The preliminary, or flash, reading was 49.1 for a purchasing managers’ index released yesterday by HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics, after a final level of 47.9 for September. China will probably keep the benchmark one-year lending rate at 6% through the end of 2012, based on median estimates in a survey conducted 18-22 Oct, instead of prior forecasts for a quarter percentage-point reduction.
Euro: Recession deepens as manufacturing shrinks
Euro-area services and manufacturing output contracted more than economists forecast in October and German business confidence dropped to the lowest in more than 2 1/2 years as Europe’s recession deepened. A composite index based on a survey of euro-area purchasing managers in services and manufacturing fell to 45.8, the lowest in more than three years, from 46.1 in September, London-based Markit Economics said yesterday. Economists had forecast a reading of 46.5, according to a Bloomberg News survey. A separate factory index in China rose. In Germany, the Ifo institute’s business climate index unexpectedly dropped to 100.0 from 101.4 in September.
UK: BOE ready to add to QE if recovery fades
Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said the Monetary Policy Committee is ready to add to stimulus again as it assesses the strength of the domestic recovery amid signs that global economic weakness is spreading. “At this stage, it is difficult to know whether some of the recent more positive signs will persist,” King said in a speech late yesterday in Cardiff, Wales. “Should those signs fade; the MPC does stand ready to inject more money into the economy.” King said gross domestic product data tomorrow may confirm a “zig-zag” pattern of recovery in the UK that is likely to continue. His comments come two weeks before officials must decide whether to increase bond purchases and at a time when the economies that have driven global growth through the crisis have shown signs of faltering.
US: Home sales rising to two-year high spur US growth
Americans bought new homes in September at the fastest pace in two years, another sign the industry whose decline was at the heart of the recession is bouncing back. Sales climbed 5.7% to a 389,000 annual pace, the most since April 2010, following a revised 368,000 rate in August, figures from the Commerce Department showed yesterday in Washington. The median estimate of 75 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for an increase to 385,000. Population growth and mortgage rates pushed to record lows by Federal Reserve purchases of housing debt are generating sales for builders like Toll Brothers Inc. and spurring the three-year economic recovery. Housing starts in September jumped 15% to the fastest pace since July 2008, a report last week showed.
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