A week ago, the economy was looking pretty bad. China and India’s economic growth have slowed. Before Europe even has a chance to fully deal with the Greek crisis, another one sprang up: Spain. In the U.S., unemployment went up slightly in May and job growth slowed. It’s just all bad news for the global economy.
Fortunately, things are looking better for the last four days. It all started last Thursday when China made a surprise cut to their central bank’s interest rate in an effort to boost its slowing economy, signaling to the rest of the world that the Chinese government was willing to act to support growth.
The stock market in U.S. rallied on Friday upon hearing news that Spain would request aid from Europe for its ailing banks. On Saturday, the Eurozone agreed to lend Spain $100B euros for that. This should buy Spain some time to figure out a strategy for their troubled banks.
U.S. jobless claims last week fell for the first time since April, which is great news after May’s disappointing unemployment and job growth numbers. Another good news is that sales from wholesale businesses grew in April. Wholesale stockpiles also grew in that month, which is an indication that we should see economic growth for the April-June quarter.
It’s some welcome news to start next week with.