Expect a temporary decline in the Brazil's unemployment rate in April

May 21, 2015 05:55 am UTC| Commentary

In Brazil, the unemployment rate is expected to post a first decline in four months, falling by two ticks to 6.2% in April. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, which rose to 5.8% in March from 5.1% in December, is...

Brazil's supply side economy likely contracted -0.7% yoy in March, -0.4% qoq in Q1

May 21, 2015 05:49 am UTC| Commentary

Despite yet another decline, Brazils industrial production growth in March (-3.5% yoy) was better than expected (-5.1% yoy), suggesting that the economy likely contracted by -0.7% yoy in the same month after falling...

Reassurance likely on the UK's output trend

May 21, 2015 05:38 am UTC| Commentary

The big fall in the April manufacturing PMI of UK from 54.0 to 51.9 has caused the market to become a little gloomy about the prospects for the manufacturing sector. That concern was also fed by the surprisingly weak Q1...

UK's weak sales will mask firm trend

May 21, 2015 05:32 am UTC| Commentary

The variable timing of Easter regularly plays havoc with the monthly path of UKs retail sales and this year has proved no exception. The survey period for the official April data this year takes in the second half of the...

Euro area's manufacturing PMI to soften; services PMI to strengthen

May 21, 2015 05:27 am UTC| Commentary

The euro area manufacturing PMI is expected to soften from 52.0 to 51.8 in May. On the other hand, the PMI for the services sector should marginally increase from 54.1 to 54.3. Historically, such PMI levels (for both the...

US FOMC minutes push first rate hike into H2

May 21, 2015 05:15 am UTC| Commentary

The minutes of the late April FOMC meeting revealed that most officials still believed the weakness in first-quarter activity was "partly or even largely transitory". Regardless of whether it was transitory or more...

New Zealand initiates new policies

May 21, 2015 04:32 am UTC| Commentary

Many of the new policy initiated by New Zealand government covered in the Budget had already been well-signalled, including further chunky ACC levy cuts in 2015/16 and 2016/17, a tightening of capital gains tax rules...