The German-US trade balance surplus keeps increasing...
In Germany, anticipation is building for the upcoming meeting between Chancellor Friedrich Merz and US President Donald Trump. The two leaders will meet at the White House on June 5 to discuss key issues including the war in Ukraine, the Middle East, and trade policy. Over the past 12 months, Germany has posted a trade surplus of >€70bn with the US, equal to 1.7% of its GDP... Source: HolgerZ, Bloomberg
Hermès just surpassed LVMH to become the world's largest luxury company.
"We're about craft, we're not machines" Source: Finchat
German job market is deteriorating:
The number of unemployed people in Germany hit 2.96 MILLION in May, the highest in at least 10 YEARS. This is even higher than at the 2020 CRISIS peak. The unemployment rate sits at 6.3%, the second-highest in 10 years. Source: Global Markets Investor
Four of Europe’s oldest industrial groups have added more than €150bn to their market caps on the back of soaring demand for data centres driven by the boom in artificial intelligence.
European makers of everything from switches to smart meters are providing the servers and infrastructure that power data centres for large language models and cloud computing, with traditional makers of electric equipment such as Legrand doubling their revenues thanks to data centres in recent years. Link to article 👉 https://lnkd.in/d8wsidBb Source: FT
In case you were wondering why European growth seemed abnormally strong in Q1.
Source: BCA
The new trade on Wall Street: T.A.C.O (Trump Always Chickens Out)
Stocks and bonds retreated last week as fiscal & trade worries resurface. Over the week-end, Trump agreed to delay the date for a 50% tariff on goods from the EU to July 9 from June 1. This morning, US Stock Futures are spiking ("The T.A.C.O trade" idea comes from a tweet on X by HolgerZ)
The flood of German trans-shipments to Russia continues unabated.
It has been 3 years now. Will the government do something about it? Source: Robin Brooks
In Germany, Producer price deflation is picking up speed.
Producer Price Index (PPI) dropped by 0.9% YoY, driven mainly by a strong Euro and possibly early impact of US tariffs. PPI is an important leading indicator for consumer inflation, so this drop could signal further cooling in prices. Source: Bloomberg, HolgerZ
