Daily update
Daily update
- Japan’s population fell 0.44% last year. Fewer people make and consumer fewer things. Japan’s economy had a second quarter of economic contraction at the end of 2023, but in the context of a declining population this is less surprising.
- The UK does not have the excuse of a falling population—quite the reverse—yet, UK GDP also fell. An interesting question is why so many workers moved to the UK (and so many companies increased investment) if the economy weakened? Data quality is an issue (2023 GDP was -0.3% or +0.4% depending on measurement methods). GDP also treats efficiency as negative—efficiency gains from flexible working or online retail may be good for living standards but bad for GDP.
- US retail sales do not adjust for price changes, so auto sector price discounts may lower the headline number. Otherwise, it is foolish to short the hedonism of the US consumer; this week’s consumer price data release confirmed that middle income homeowners have strong spending power. However, aside from restaurant spending, the retail sales does not capture spending on having fun.
- There is a lot of central bank chatter (including ECB President Lagarde, of course), some irrelevant sentiment surveys from the US, and US import and export prices.
