Data Watch - April 14

CANADA

Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey (BOS) and Senior Loan Officer Survey (SLOS) were released on Easter Monday, and confirm the theme of second-derivative improvement but with still-negative first-derivatives (i.e. things are still getting worse, but at a slower pace).

The BOS diffusion index on future sales expectations improved from -34 last quarter to -22 in Q1, which remains the 2nd-worst reading since the series began in 1998. Most other indices showed similar improvements off Q4's all-time lows, but remain well in contraction territory. Economic slack appears to have intensified. And, most notably, inflation expectations are getting further pared back, with 41% of firms now expecting inflation in the next 12 months to be below 1%. As for the SLOS, there was marginal improvement in credit conditions from both the demand and the supply side, though improvements were entirely in availability of credit, while the price side was worse (i.e. wider spreads).

no data releases Tuesday; later this week we get vehicle sales (Wed), manufacturing shipments (Thurs) and CPI (Friday)


US

PPI and retail sales were released at 8:30;

headline PPI was expected to be -2.2% YoY while ex-food and energy was expected to be +4.0%, but they came in softer than expected at -3.5% and 3.8%, respectively; those numbers are for finished goods; intermediate goods are down 8.9% YoY, while crude goods are down 39% YoY

retail sales came in weaker than expected (see Calculated Risk's post for charts); advance retail sales were expected to be up 0.3% MoM in March, and flat excluding autos, but came in at -1.1% on the headline and -0.9% less autos; auto sales volume increased, but price discounting dominated the volume effect; spending in almost every category declined, with the exception of food; part of the MoM disappointment, however, was due to upward revisions to February's data; nonetheless, retail sales are now down 10.7% in the last year (retail and food service sales down 9.4%; retail sales ex-autos -6.0%)


INTERNATIONAL

nada

UPDATE:
Singapore's economy plunged 19.7% annualized in the first quarter, and 11.5% over the last year