Europe at risk of double-dip recession

French household spending dropped 2.7pc in January, led by a 19pc collapse in car sales following the end of France’s scrappage scheme. Germany’s IFO business confidence index dropped for the first time since the depths of the crisis in December 2008, partly due to bad weather. Confidence relapsed in Italy.

Mervyn King, the Bank of England’s Governor, said Europe’s rebound “appears to have stalled” , posing fresh risks for Britain as well. “My particular concerns at present derive from the state of the world economy and our largest trading partner, the euro area,” he said.

Mr King said surplus countries around the world are not stimulating enough to offset belt-tightening by deficit states such as the UK, US and Spain, citing the eurozone as a “microcosm” of the problem. “I was struck by the mood at the G7 meeting in Canada, where several of the major economies around the world said quite openly that they were relying on external demand growth to generate growth in their economy. That can’t be true of everybody,” he said.

The eurozone grew by just 0.1pc in the last quarter of 2009 as government stimulus wound down. Germany was flat; Italy contracted again; Spain and Greece were still in recession. Outside EMU, the Czech, Hungarian and Romanian economies all shrank.

Telegraph

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.

Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza