Introducing

Robert Brusca

Robert A. Brusca is Chief Economist of Fact and Opinion Economics, a consulting firm he founded in Manhattan. He has been an economist on Wall Street for over 25 years. He has visited central banking and large institutional clients in over 30 countries in his career as an economist. Mr. Brusca was a Divisional Research Chief at the Federal Reserve Bank of NY (Chief of the International Financial markets Division), a Fed Watcher at Irving Trust and Chief Economist at Nikko Securities International. He is widely quoted and appears in various media. Mr. Brusca holds an MA and Ph.D. in economics from Michigan State University and a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan. His research pursues his strong interests in non aligned policy economics as well as international economics. FAO Economics’ research targets investors to assist them in making better investment decisions in stocks, bonds and in a variety of international assets. The company does not manage money and has no conflicts in giving economic advice.

Publications by Robert Brusca

Japan| Oct 08 2025
Japan’s Economy Watchers Index Advances
Japan's economy watchers index in September advanced to 47.1 with the future index rising to 48.5. The current index rose month-to-month by four-tenths of a percentage point while the future index rose by a full diffusion point.

The Current Index In September, among the 9 detailed categories, all but three of them improved in the current index, in August all but two had improved, and in July all but four had improved.

Sequential changes- The sequential changes on the current index shows that over three months the headline and all components improved, over six months the headline and all components also improved, but over 12 months only two components improved and the headline falls back by about nine-tenths of one-point. Improving over 12 months are only the assessments for services and for housing

Rankings- The ranking statistics for the current index show only two components below a rank-value of 50%, which means only two components are below their respective medians on data back to 2004. However, the current readings show the headline and all components below diffusion values of 50 in September, indicating contraction both overall as well as in each category. This combination of observations is a stark reminder of how weak Japan’s economy has been, that contracting diffusion values are above their medians. In the case of housing with a 73.5 percentile standing – a standing that, on its own seems quite solid, corresponds to a monthly diffusion value at 49. Housing diffusion has been stronger than a diffusion value of 49 only about 27% of the time (over the past 21-years).

The Future Index The future responses are similar in nature to the current responses. Recent diffusion values have mostly been improving monthly. Only two were weaker in September, compared to four in August and none in July. The future index, however, has two September readings above diffusion values of 50: for eating & drinking places and for nonmanufacturers. In August services read above a 50 diffusion value (even as the weaken month-to-month) and in July three component responses are above 50.

Sequential changes- Over three months all components improve except employment; that result is replicated over six months. Over 12 months only three categories are improving: eating & drinking, housing, and nonmanufacturing.

Rankings- Only two sectors rank below 50% (below their respective medians) in September; those two are services and employment expectations). The headline standing is above 50% at 50.2%, unlike for the current reading where the headline standing is at 48.2%. However, we once again see that 5 sector readings in the future survey have diffusion values in September below 50 but are above their respective medians. The same is true of the headline for the future index. The median phenomenon has been a moderate contraction over the last 21 years.
by:Robert Brusca
|in:Economy in Brief
Germany| Oct 06 2025
German Orders Decline on Foreign Weakness
German orders fell by 0.8% in August, dropping for four months in a row. Foreign orders have been and continue to be chronically weak. Domestic orders that made a strong rebound in the month have been erratic in recent months although they seem to be on a recovery path.

Total German factory orders are sequentially weakening on growth of 1.6% over 12 months, 0.5% annualized over six months and logging an annual rate of decline of 14.2% over three months. This path is largely driven by foreign orders that are weakening progressively and sharply. Foreign orders rise by just 0.4% over 12 months, then fall at a 1.6% annualized pace over six months and collapse at an annualized rate of -31.2% over three months. In contrast, domestic orders engage a moderate accelerating path that is topped off by extremely strong growth. Domestic orders rise by 3.4% over 12 months and at a slightly stronger 3.7% pace over six months and accelerate to 20.8% annualized over three months.

Quarter-to-date overall and foreign orders are declining with domestic orders following suit. Foreign orders show substantial contraction in the quarter while domestic orders contract at a much less violent pace.

Rankings as an order-vetting process If we further vet orders by their levels, a weak judgement-standard over such a span even for ‘real’ orders, rankings on levels since 1990 show foreign orders at the 70% mark and domestic orders at a quite weak 35-percentile. However, rankings based on year-over-year growth rates drop the foreign order ranking to 38.5%, below their median and raise domestic orders to their 61.9 percentile. Total orders ranked by growth have a 49.2 percentile standing, nearly a median ranking; while total orders ranked on levels have a 58.4 percentile standing.

Real sales Real sales for manufactured goods, viewed sequentially, show mixed trends with manufacturing overall having no clear tendency other than that of slight contraction. Consumer durable goods orders show accelerating contraction. Other categories are without clear trend. Quarter-to-date most categories show contraction in the quarter. Levels of real sales rankings show an above-median 50.7% for all of manufacturing boosted by capital goods with a 69.7 percentile standing and supported by intermediate goods with a slight under median 47.1 percentile standing. Consumer goods sales standings are extremely weak. But sales based on growth rates (12-months) show rankings below 50% for all sales categories – most are at the one-third mark.

EMU industrial confidence in large countries Industrial confidence metrics for the four largest EMU member economies show broad weakening in August except for France; but all of the countries had improved industrial confidence in July. Sequentially the patterns are mixed for these four countries. Compared to year ago, values for two of them improved (France and Spain) while two other deteriorated (Germany and Italy). The queue standing on levels which are a fairer comparison on diffusion data (like this) show all readings below their 50-percentile mark (the median), with Germany at an anemic 12.9 percentile rank, the weakest of all and Spain at a 46.8 percentile ranking, the strongest.

On balance, this is a disappointing report for Germany. Its domestic economy seems to be on the right track, but its key customer base in foreign markets appears to be struggling more. It’s a mixed view, at best.
by:Robert Brusca
|in:Economy in Brief
Europe| Oct 06 2025
EMU Retail Sales Show Unevenness
Motor vehicle registrations fell sharply in August, dropping 10.8% after rising 11.5% in July, which had followed a 4.6% drop in June. This sort of ragged action in monthly activity is not really very unusual. It's characteristic of the auto market; however, if we look at the sequential data in the table, we see motor vehicle registrations up 3.6% over 12 months, falling at a 12% annual rate over six months, and then falling at 19.1% annual rate over three months, clearly an escalating pattern of weakness that is hidden by the monthly volatility.

Aggregate sales for the monetary union are not available yet; however, we have sales for eight key European countries. Not all of them members of the monetary union. Still, they tell a story.

We see in August sales dropped month-to-month in Germany and Italy and the Netherlands; sales rose in the other five reporting countries. There was repeat fall for Germany since sales also fell in July month-to-month; sales had fallen in two countries in July, the drop in Spain was reversed by an August gain. Italy, that has seen a drop in August, had flat sales in July. But only two countries had clear net declines in sales for July and August combined. In June, sales dropped in Denmark and the Netherland, while they turned up flat in Norway; sales grew in the other reporting countries.

We can recalibrate by looking at the sequential growth rates from 12-months, six-months, and three-months. On that basis, we see that there is weakness in play for Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands over this span. Only Italy shows sales volumes are steadily expanding at an increasingly more rapid rate. Technically Spain is not on the list of countries showing acceleration, but Spain is showing growth of 4.5% or 4.6% in each one of these periods, a very steady and solid result. Sweden also fails the ‘every period improvement test’; however, its 3.9% growth over 12 months with growth down only to 3.6% over six months that explodes to an 18.1% annual rate over three months is clearly a candidate for a country that is percolating and doing better.

Quarter-to-date we've seen that motor vehicle registrations are falling at a 1.4% annual rate. But retail sales QTD are as strong as 7.5% in an annual rate in the Netherlands and 6% in Sweden. With the weakest result, apart from Germany's decline, there’s a gain of 1.7% at an annual rate in Italy. These data, through August, are for two months into the new quarter.

We also made the comparison of sales gains since COVID struck. On that basis, we see that motor vehicle registrations have fallen from their level in January 2020 by 20.2%. U.K. sales are contracting, falling by 2.6% in this lengthy period. Over this period, the U.K. conducted its operation Brexit in which it exited its membership from the European Union. As you can see, they paid a price for the exit- the weakest sales in this group and the only net decline. In Italy, sales are up very strongly at 11.1%, in Spain at 8.5%. After that, sales rates are clustered around net growth rates of 4 or 5% or slightly weaker; since we're looking at a 5 ½ year period, these sales translate into real consumer spending of less than 1% per year.

The graphic on retail sales shows that there's not a great deal of momentum for sales. We can see from the growth statistics of the individual countries in the table where three of the countries in the sample showing ongoing sales decelerations against only one with a clear acceleration.
by:Robert Brusca
|in:Economy in Brief
Global| Oct 03 2025
Global Composite PMIs Show September Set-back
The standard and Poor’s composite Global PMIs for September showed broad weakness in the month compared to August. Only 7 reporters in the table showed improvement month-to-month while 12 showed deterioration. The average unweighted PMI value for September was 51.0 compared to 50.6 in August which surprisingly indicates an improvement. However, the median value showed a level of 50.0 in September compared to 50.4 in August, revealing deterioration. The breadth of comparison show a lot more weakness month-to-month than strength; however, the average and median data are at odds on what's happening on balance.

Compared to July the median data also showed that the September value was weaker; on average data, however, September is stronger compared to July. But both cases were dealing with rather small margins of change.

The sequential comparisons over three months, six months and 12 months chronicled in the table show all three horizons tilted toward improvement- even for the 3-month span in the face of the September broad deterioration. Median averages for each period are slightly weaker than average values but both comparisons show similar small improvements in the 3-month average compared to the 12-month average.

However, the average and mean value for the while span of data back to January 2021 are nearly identical and the ranking of the current September observations in that data is similar with a 54.5 percentile standing using the average of all rank standings on the period while the median of composite standings is at 52.6 percentile. Over the period, the rank standings show fourteen of nineteen observations are above the 50% mark putting them above the median for the period. Only five countries have composite PMIs below their median values since 2021. The laggards are Poland, Greece, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Norway. India has a ranking in its 98th percentile, but apart from that Slovenia has a 77th percentile ranking and the next tranche of rankings is in the sixtieth percentile encompassing Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Australia, and China. There are also four reporters with rankings above 50% but below 51%! These are France, Italy, Spain, and Hungary.

In comparisons, the high-low range rankings show countries generally much closer to their lower bound than their upper bound on the period, with Slovenia, Australia, India, and China as exceptions to this phenomenon.

The September data are bit disconcerting. But then the changes in the month are generally small. The average and median data for this group of countries shows average and median PMI values at 50 or 51. Both approaches are close to showing no or small output changes overall. While there have been swings in national data since 2023, there has been little trending at all as economic output has been mostly weak and showing little acceleration or deceleration except for specific countries over very short periods. The clear overriding trend has been sideways and weak. And it remains so.
by:Robert Brusca
|in:Economy in Brief
Europe| Oct 02 2025
EMU Unemployment Ticks Higher
The unemployment rate in the European Monetary Union (EMU) ticked up to 6.3% in August from 6.2% in July, rising one tenth of one percentage point from its all-time low. Even though this is an increase in the unemployment rate, it's a very small increase and it's an unemployment rate that is extremely low for the EMU. The unemployment rate is based on the 20 economies that report unemployment. However, the table reports 12-early reporters and long-standing EMU members that show that the unemployment rate increased in only five countries in August: Austria, Finland, Italy, Portugal, and the Netherlands. All the other countries listed in the table say their unemployment rates were either steady or lower on the month. In July, the unemployment rate rose month-to-month in only one country, which was Ireland where it went up to 4.8% from 4.6%. In June, the unemployment rate rose in only three countries: Austria, Finland, and Greece. Of course, the table is only a sample of countries; there are 20 countries that typically contribute data to the European Monetary Union aggregate. The full slate of data is represented in the EMU total as reported.

Sequential data that look at changes in unemployment rates over three months, six months and 12 months, show that among these 12 member countries over 3 months only four had unemployment rates increasing; over 6 months five countries had unemployment rates increasing; over 12 months seven countries have their unemployment rates higher.

When we take the reported unemployment rates as of August and put them in a queue of data back to the year 2000, there are only three countries in the monetary union that have unemployment rates that are above their median for that period. And those are Austria, Luxembourg, and Finland. All the rest of the countries have unemployment rates that rank below their 50th percentile which places them below their respective medians for that period.

In fact, apart from the three countries that have their unemployment rates above their respective medians, the rest (the remaining nine) rank in their bottom 25th percentiles. All of the highest-ranking unemployment rates among those nine are Ireland at the 23rd percentile, and Germany and Portugal at the 22nd percentile. Italy, for example, still has an unemployment rate that ranks at its 0.7 percentile. Greece's unemployment rate, even though it's 8.1%, has been lower only 3.3% of the time. The unemployment rate for the entire monetary union has been lower only 3.2% of the time. If we look at the broader unemployment rate for the European Union, it has been lower only 2.6% of the time.
by:Robert Brusca
|in:Economy in Brief
Global| Oct 01 2025
Global MFG PMIs Mostly Erode in September but by Small Amounts; It’s Really a Nothing-Burger of Economic Change
Manufacturing PMIs in September worsened for all the countries in the sample except for China and South Korea. The diffusion calculation was 11% in September but that compares to 83% in August and 55% in July; in past months improvement was much more common. Comparing the sequential results of 12-months to 6-months to 3-months, the median over 12 months is 49.2, over 6 months it's 48.8, and over 3 months it's 49.3. These are not compelling numbers in any direction and they show that output in manufacturing is simply hovering in a very slightly contractive position to 12-months ago.

The diffusion calculations that compare 3-months to 6-months, 6-months to 12-months across countries are steady at 66.7%. All those horizons regularly show improvement for two-thirds of the reporting countries over each of those horizons.

The queue rankings, however, indicate there's still a great deal of weakness with ten of the reporting countries having PMI readings since January 2021 that are below their respective medians. Output is above the respective medians for eight countries.

The bottom of the table presents statistics grouped in different ways a grouping of developed countries, the BRICs, other Asia. On that basis, there's really not much discrimination except that the BRIC countries show average readings that for the most part are above 50; other comparisons for the most part are below 50. The statistics, though, clustered around 50. The global medians call PMI values below 50 while the global averages coalesce at readings slightly above 50. And while these are differences, there's not much distinction between these differences.

In addition, we know that the queue rankings show a great deal of weakness in the current percentile standings which also leaves us with the conclusion that manufacturing is not particularly robust.

There are five countries or areas showing sequential improvement from 12-month to six-month to three-month averages and there are five of them showing sequential weakening on the same time horizon. In both cases, the transitions are small.
by:Robert Brusca
|in:Economy in Brief
Europe| Sep 29 2025
EU Indexes Firm Slightly on the Month for EMU
The European Monetary Union indexes for September showed slight uptick to 95.5 from 95.3 in August. However, at 95.5 the September reading was still below the July reading of 95.8, but it was above the June reading of 94.2. EU sentiment indexes have been moving sideways since the end of 2022 without much trend.

All the components except for construction rank and roughly their respective 20th to 30th percentiles of their historic queues of data. The exception is construction, where the sector has a 74.6 percentile standing and retailing with a nearly 46-percentile standing, leaving it marginally below its median. However, the industrial sector ranking is at its 26-percentile, services rank at their 27th percentile and consumer confidence is at its 20th percentile. On the whole that’s a collection of quite weak readings: one firm, one marginal and three weak.

Compared to January 2020 before COVID struck, all the sectors and the aggregate index are lower by about 8 to 10 points over the five-and-one-half-year period. The exception is the industrial sector, which is lower by only five points.

National sentiment monthly showed eight declines in September, compared to seven declines in August and only five month-to-month declines in July.

The sector rankings for large country industrial sentiment shows they're all ranking below 50% except for Spain. Spain also has the only above 50-percentiel standing for consumer confidence at a strong 96.5 percentile. Retailing has two of the large economies ranking above 50%: Italy and Spain. No service sector readings for the large economies are even close to neutral. Construction, however, ranks above the 50% mark in three of four large economics and in France, where it falls short and has a ranking that is still at its 45th percentile. Weakness is broadly shared across EMU sectors for the large and small alike.

The services sector weakness in the EMU is quite important because it's a job producing sector. It’s no coincidence that consumer confidence and services in the EMU have the lowest standings. The outlook for the monetary union is going to depend a lot on how the forces of inflation develop as well as how the war in Ukraine develops. In the meantime, U.S. budget politics could rile markets, and we are told that China is trying to dazzle the Trump Administration with a trade deal if it backs off support of Taiwan independence. Both of these are potentially global market moving events that are in flux.
by:Robert Brusca
|in:Economy in Brief
Italy| Sep 26 2025
Italy’s Confidence Creeps Higher
The chart shows that within the big picture Italian confidence both business and consumer confidence has been relatively steady in recent months for about a year. The consumer reading has had some volatility but no trend. Technically in the current month business confidence is unchanged, and consumer confidence has moved up a couple of tenths of a point on the index of consumer confidence. The index is higher by 0.7% over three months and lower by 1.5% over 12 months. When ranked on data back to late-1997, the current index ranks in a 68.7 percentile of its queue of data, placing it in the top one-third of confidence values over that period. It’s a reasonably firm reading and a high reading by most standards among European countries at this time.

Assessments of the overall situation over the last 12 months improved to net survey reading of -62 in September from -67 in August. That reading has a 63.6 percentile standing.

Assessing the overall situation for the next 12 months ahead, there's another improvement to -20 in September from -24 in August; however, this is a much weaker reading, residing in a 10.7 percentile of its historic queue of data. So, while the overall situation has been relatively firm and the overall confidence reading is firm, the outlook for the next 12 months has some ominous undercurrents to it. Unemployment expectations have increased slightly to a -3 reading from -4. That index in September has a 27.5 percentile standing, a relatively low standing overall but still a little high to be really comfortable from a consumer confidence standpoint. Household budget assessments improved slightly to +24 from +23, which has a very strong standing in its 88th percentile.

The household financial situation, looking ahead, improves slightly; over the last 12 months it deteriorated slightly. The backward-looking measure has a 67.8 percentile standard while the forward-looking measure has a 12.2 percentile standard, once again, raising those concerns about what the future is going to hold.

The current assessment for household savings slipped slightly to a reading of 49 in September from 52 in August; the future reading is steady at -6 in September. The current reading has a 34.9 percentile standing; the future reading has the 97-percentile standing. This higher reading for the future is not necessarily good news as responses to savings are typically correlated negatively with responses about intentions to spend and are often associated with concerns about the future. However, the direct question about the environment for making major purchases showed a slight improvement to -29 in September from -30 in August and produced a standing in a 66.9 percentile, a top one third reading. For now, the consumer in Italy is still undaunted and holds relatively firm view of the environment for spending. The business environment assessment was unchanged month-to-month but overall has a much weaker standing.

The businesses assessment is only in the 24.5 percentile of its historic queue of data marking the responses as a bottom 25 percentile response which is not reassuring.
by:Robert Brusca
|in:Economy in Brief
United Kingdom| Sep 25 2025
U.K. Distributive Trades: Mixed with a Worsened Outlook
The Confederation of British Industry report shows some improvement and deterioration in the same month; retailing improves while wholesale survey worsens sharply. The look-ahead to October for retailing weakens sharply while there was mixed performance in the outlook for wholesaling. The report doesn't do much to clarify the outlook.

Current Sales: Current sales compared to a year ago improved to -29 in September from -32 in August. Orders compared to a year ago also improved to -36 from -40. These improvements still leave the monthly reading levels worse than their respective 12-month averages although sales at the time of year are significantly better than their 12-month average. The queue percentile standings for these metrics of sales are all weak, the only element in the report that is strong, or firm is for the stock to sales comparison, and that is usually a negative indicator.

Sales Expectations: The expectations in October for sales dropped sharply to a -36 reading from -16 in September, orders dropped to -38 from -32 in September while sales ‘for the time of year’ plunged to -43 from -20. Each one of these readings is weaker than its 12-month average. Historic standings are even weaker than for the current sales and orders metrics, with sales for a year ago with a 4.9 percentile standing and sales ‘for the time of year’ at an even weaker 1.4 percentile standing, rarely ever weaker. The current vs. the outlook signals are crossed.

Current Wholesaling: Worse performance in the current readings while the outlook for the next month is mixed marks the overview of the wholesale trade arm of the distributive sales report. Sales adjusted for the time of year and orders and sales compared to a year ago all deteriorate. Each one of these readings is not only weak month-to-month but each is weaker than its respective 12-month average. And the queue rankings are all in the lower tenth percentile range.

Wholesaling Expectations: The outlook shows mixed performance for sales compared to a year ago, improving to -22 in October from -26 in September; orders deteriorated to -41 from -38 in September. Sales ‘for the time of year’ barely ticked weaker in October. Readings are weaker than their respective 12-month averages as well, except for year-ago sales. The percentile standings for the three categories range from a ‘high’ percentile standing at its 14th percentile for sales compared to a year ago, while the other two metrics show rankings that are below their 5th percentiles in their historic queue of values – an extremely weak showing.

Summing up: Clearly the survey shows a mixed view of retail and a general worsening as well as a mixed-up picture between current performance vs. what is expected for next month. While there is little consistency in this survey in terms of monthly changes, what is crystal clear is that conditions - no matter where, or when, assessed - are very weak. Perhaps it is reports like this one that are keeping the Bank of England on hold instead of battling inflation with growth looking like it might give way at any moment.
by:Robert Brusca
|in:Economy in Brief
Germany| Sep 24 2025
IFO Survey Setback in Germany
The IFO climate survey deteriorated in September, falling to -15.6 from -15.1 in August. The wholesale reading showed a deterioration, as did manufacturing and then services. Construction and retailing improved slightly. The climate all-sector ranking is at its 20.7 percentile. Even weaker is the ranking for services at 7.9% and the ranking for manufacturing at 15.1%. Only the construction sector has a ranking above 50%, which places it above its median value. Wholesale and retailing both have rankings in the 21st percentile.

Current conditions in September fell to a diffusion reading of -4.7 from -3.1 in August. The slippage was in manufacturing, wholesaling, and services once again with construction improving slightly and retailing improving to -17.8 from -19.7. The queue standing rankings have the all-sector current index in its 10.8 percentile. The individual sectors all have a higher ranking than that. The lower overall ranking reflects the confluence of weak rankings across sectors that is unusual. Manufacturing has a 13-percentile standing, services have a 12-percentile standing, with retailing at a 41.7 percentile standing and once again construction has a standing above its 50th percentile at the 60.4 percentile mark.

The expectations’ all-sector index falls to -11.9 in September from -8.3 in August; that drop is troubling because this is a forward-looking metric not simply a current assessment. The rank standing for expectations is in its 19.7 percentile, about the same ranking as for climate and above the current all-sector ranking. Retailing logs a 13-percentile standing, services are at a 15-percentile standing, and wholesaling at a 19.9, nearly 20-percentile standing. Manufacturing is at a 26.9 percentile standing with construction at a 43-percentile standing. All the metrics are below their 50th percentile in expectations, marking all of them below their historic medians on data back to 1993.

There is a far-right hand column that also presents ranking statistics. These are rankings since February 2022 since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. For expectations, we see that after the invasion rankings are currently showing a lot of uplift although ominously the services sector, which is the job creating sector has only a 56.8 percentile standing; that compares to the all-sector expectation standing at its 84th percentile. Looking at climate the all-sector index is at 54.5%. That is much stronger than on the full data set back to 1993. The 54.5 percentile standing is supported by strong readings out of construction and wholesaling vs. weak greetings from retailing and services. But these weak rankings are still stronger than for the full sample. Readings for September current conditions on this shorter period remain about the same as for the full sample – except that retailing and services are much weaker.

Overall, the September IFO is disappointing and weaker. The performance of expectations is disturbing. These are going to be developments to watch in the coming months especially to see if expectations make a recovery.
by:Robert Brusca
|in:Economy in Brief
Global| Sep 23 2025
Global PMI Weakness in September Despite Trending Progress
The S&P PMIs for September show more backtracking than they show progress, although over three months even in terms of up-to-date monthly data, the trends show uptrends (among 21 calculations of 3-month changes only three show setbacks). Weakening is shown in the service sector in the United States, India, and Australia while in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and in the European Monetary Union (EMU) services sectors were getting stronger. In September, manufacturing weakened in the EMU, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Australia, and India with only the U.S. showing improvement. Japan, a country that usually contributes to the early PMI flash survey, is not included this month in the early S&P release.

Sequential trends Over three months, we see broad strengthening across these reporting countries with Australia showing weakness across all three measures. India shows a composite weakening and a manufacturing weakening and France demonstrates manufacturing weakness. All the other 3-month metrics show strengthening. Using only the hard data and ignoring the up-to-date flash data that remained preliminary, there is still relatively broad strengthening over three months and six months. Over six months, the composite PMIs are strengthening everywhere except in Australia and in the United States with manufacturing improving broadly everywhere except in Australia, India, and in the U.K. Over 12 months, strengthening is also extremely broad with the United Kingdom an exception showing weakening on all three metrics- and with all the other metrics showing strengthening, except for services in Germany (17 out of 21 improve over 12 months).

Standings The queue percentile standing data show a proliferation of readings above the 50-percentile mark placing them above their medians on data back to January 2021; the exceptions are the U.K. with sub-median weakening in all three sectors and in the United States with a sub-par services readings but one that is barely below its median (at 49.1%!). France checks in with sub-median services and composite readings.

The outlook The chart at the top of this report makes a clear positive statement about the ongoing trend improvement. With the Federal Reserve in the U.S. having turned back to an easing cycle for interest rates even with inflation excessive, central banks may be ready to take a risk with stimulus. While inflation remains over target and may even be slightly accelerating, the pace of acceleration is very slight in the U.S. and largely the same conditions prevail globally. The current inflation overshoot faced by most central banks is modest; although in the case of the U.S., it has missed its inflation target for 4 1/2 years in a row-that should be worrisome but the Fed has pressed ahead with a rate cut and seems to favor even more.

The average results for the PMI readings sequentially for 12-months, 6-months and 3-months show steady improvement. The sequential readings are based on only hard data available through August. The more recent monthly data (far right hand column on changes) show June to September improvement for the composite index and for services averages with manufacturing slightly weaker.

The report on the month is slightly weaker, but the trending results are still encouraging. And if there is a new global easing cycle in train, growth will improve further even with the challenge of war remaining in place between Russia and Ukraine.
by:Robert Brusca
|in:Economy in Brief
Belgium| Sep 22 2025
Belgian Consumer Confidence Makes Modest Gain; On a Slow Improvement Track
This steady progression is underpinned by a six-month-ago reading of -10 and a 12-month-ago reading of -7. Belgium is an interesting mid-European economy. It is industrialized, it is middle-sized and it's in the middle of the monetary union itself.

When the performance of confidence in Belgium is compared with the European Monetary Union total, we find that there is an average correlation in confidence of 0.56 across seven key economies including the monetary union measure itself. Belgium has a 0.79 correlation with confidence in the Netherlands, 0.69 relationship with France and the 0.76 correlation with the EMU overall, so it's a reasonably consistent bellwether for what's going on in the monetary union. And the correlation is close to 0.5 with Italy and Portugal. Belgium's weakest correlation in the monetary union among these countries is 0.18 with Greece. This suggests to me is that Belgium is a country that's relatively plugged into the activity trend of the monetary union itself.

Belgium’s ranking for consumer confidence at 78.8% on data back to 1991; since January 2020, its consumer index is up by just 5 points, a very shallow gain for such a long period of time – but still a solid and firm ranking.

For the economic situation over the next 12 months, the reading has a ranking at its 17th percentile, substantial steep down from a 40th percentile standing of the past 12 months. That’s not a good sign.

Price trends are slightly elevated on a ranked basis but are falling month-to-month from July to August to September. However, sequentially since 12 months ago, they are on the rise- so the inflation picture is more complicated. Expected inflation (price trend) at a 69th percentile standing for the next 12 months, is down from what is now a 77.9 percentile standing over the previous 12 months.

However, unemployment expectations are mild and falling both short term and sequentially with a low 9 percentile queue standing. That is very good news.

The financial situation of households is little changed on both short- and long-term trends with modest near median ranking for the next- was well as the last-12-months.

The appraisal of the current situation is down a notch in the month and sequentially has eased a bit as well but stands with an 83.2 percentile ranking, one of the highest standings in the table.

Household standings have a high 94.4 percentile standing, the favorability to save at the 74.6 percentile mark.

On balance The Belgian readings are solid and mostly upbeat. Inflation readings show concerns more than fear about what might be happening on the price front. On the whole, the response standings and trends are a positive signal for this country set in the belly of the European Union.
by:Robert Brusca
|in:Economy in Brief