Inventory Buildup Helps Italian Economy To Stop Contracting

December 10, 2013 Share Print 0

Italy’s gross domestic product stopped shrinking in the third quarter, according to revised data from national statistics institute Istat.

Italian real GDP was unchanged from the previous three months, and down 1.8% from the third quarter of 2012, Istat reported Tuesday. The preliminary estimates were a 0.1% decline on the quarter and a 1.9% contraction on the year.

The new data say Italy’s longest postwar contraction formally ended over the summer after eight consecutive quarters. It also puts the government on track to meet or even beat its forecast that GDP will have declined by 1.8% over all of 2013.

The improvement was led by an inventory buildup, which is a sign of growing confidence among companies that they will be able to sell their output, although domestic buyers may not step up to the plate for a while.

via WSJ.com

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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.