Submitted by Mark Hanna
Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.
It’s all relative in markets, and the new overnight of a Euro Zone contraction of 0.3% was slightly better than the 0.4% expected. More importantly the belief that the European Central Bank has created an epic kick the can moment with its LTRO program is really all that seems to matter in this environment. As you have seen aside from a slight dip here or there the past week, everything out of Greece for example, has been ignored.
Via Marketwatch:
- The economy of the 17-nation euro zone shrank 0.3% in the final three months of 2011 as the sovereign debt crisis took its toll, with Italy slipping back into recession while France unexpectedly grew and Germany saw a smaller-than-expected contraction.
- Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast a 0.4% quarterly contraction. Euro-zone GDP grew by 0.1% in the third quarter.
- A slightly smaller-than-expected fourth-quarter contraction combined with stronger purchasing managers index readings and other leading indicators in the euro zone have led many economists to expect the currency bloc will avoid meeting the widely-used definition of recession, which is two consecutive quarters of shrinking GDP.
- National data showed France, the euro-zone’s second largest economy, defied expectations for a 0.1% fourth-quarter contraction to grow 0.2%. Germany, Europe’s economic juggernaut, shrank by 0.2% versus forecasts for a 0.3% contraction.
- But Italy, the euro-zone’s third-largest economy and the country seen as the key battleground in the fight to contain the debt crisis, saw fourth-quarter GDP shrink by a larger-than-expected 0.7% after a 0.2% decline in the previous three months.
- Spain saw quarterly GDP shrink by 0.3% after a flat performance in the third quarter.
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Meanwhile, over in the U.K. we have the highest unemployment rate in 17 years.
- British unemployment rose by 48,000 to 2.67 million in the three months to December. The unemployment rate rose from 8.3 percent to 8.4 percent, the highest level in 17 years.
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