Let’s delve into the country specific data.

     The Bank of Canada maintained their current .5% interest rate policy this week, offering the following assessment of the Canadian economy:

OPEC’s decision to increase oil production had a strong negative impact on western Canada, which had seen a boom of tar sands related activity.  But according to the central bank, the adjustment is now over.  They also describe a standard series of economic cause and effect events, starting with a declining unemployment rate:

The jobless rate dropped from 7.3% at the beginning of 2016 to its current level of 6.5%.  This has increased consumer confidence, which translates into higher consumer spending:

Y/Y retail sales increase have risen from 1% in 2015 to their current strong pace of just under 7%.  And the other half of the economic equation – businesses – are also increasing their activity:

The top chart shows the Canadian PMI index, which has risen strongly since the beginning of 2016.  This has translated into strong gains in industrial production, as shown in the second chart.

The combination of these developments has led to an increase in Canadian GDP:

The above data indicates that Canada has recovered nicely from oil’s price drop.

     The ONS released the 1^strevision to the UK’s 1Q GDP report.  Overall GDP increased .2% from the previous quarter:

This is one of the weakest readings for from the UK since 2012. Moreover, the Q/Q number has weakened in the last 9 quarterly reports.  This is translating into a slightly lower Y/Y growth rate:

 Here is a breakdown of report’s component parts:

 This quarter, investments (in grey) was a large driver, which has greatly offset by a large decline in exports (in yellow).  It’s natural to ask if the post-Brexit slowdown predicted by a number of economists and analysts is now here.  We’ll need at least another quarter of data to make that determination.

           The only news from the EU was the latest Markit numbers: manufacturing rose to a 6-year high of 58.4; services marginally decreased .2 to 56.2; the overall number was unchanged at 56.8.  But the report contained this very positiveanalysis:

In recent public commentary, the ECB noted a very important feedback loop was occurring: job gains were increasing consumer confidence which, in turn, was supporting increased consumer spending.  Here is the data:

The top chart is the EU unemployment rate, which has consistently decreased for the last 4 years.  That has supported retail sales (bottom chart), which have steadily increased over the same period of time.

     Finally, there were two pieces of economic data from Japan.  The market number decreased marginally, falling .2 to 52.  And prices remain weak: overall, they increased .4 while core prices were unchanged.