Despite the decline of investors’ confidence proved by the data released early last week, Germany’s economy is still expanding but not as expected. The Federal Statistical Office (Destat) published on Friday the estimated value of the German GDP (Gross Domestic Product), explaining the 0.4% economy expansion in Q1 of 2015, this being the final value – after price adjustments, seasonal adjustments and calendar variations. The toll of this year’ events subsided in a figure lower than the expected +0.5%.
Going south, the Greek Parliament voted in favor of the draft sketched for the 3rd bailout, after a night-long session ending Friday. The opposition is the one Greece has to thank for standing up for the draft, despite the reluctance of a decent number of Parliament members against the 85 BEUR loan. The draft consists of several tax rises and spending cuts as conditions for the international bailout.
Zooming out, the European price adjusted GDP went up with 1.6% for Q2 2015, after a 1.2% rise in Q1. The Eurostat report stating this data came out on Friday, a day after ECB stated the intention of more QE if found necessary. Beside the GDP, the report also contained the inflation figures for July. It seems like the prices went up to a yearly 1.0% growth, higher with 0.1% than the yearly 0.9% in June. The headline figure remained the same, staying at an yearly 0.2%, although during July there was a drop of 0.6%, followed by a 0.8% hike.
In the US, the Labor Department published a 0.2% growth in the PPI (Producer’s Price Index) for July coming after a 0.6% rise in June; the figure exceeded the expected 0.1%. The core wholesale prices also grew with 0.3%, maintaining last month’s trend and also exceeding the expected 0.1% gain. The yearly costs hiked to +0.6%. The personal consumption expenditures index went up 0.3% in June against the same period last year. The EUR/USD’s hike on Friday was topped by the 1.1189 threshold. From there, the trend slide to the daily low at 1.1096, closing around 1.1100.
Friday, Gold has went down for the most part of the session but turned back up, closing the day on gain in the $1,100 area. The main reason was the bid tone o the US dollar, although the period’s trend setter still remains the PBoC (People’s Bank of China), its decision triggering a demand for the safe haven across the markets.
