httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1e1Iet6Ck8

Data released this morning  revealed Germany proving itself as the economic growth machine of the eurozone as GDP grew at a speedy 2.2% rate in the second quarter compared to the last three months. I particularly enjoyed this quote from the FT: “Superman is wearing black, red and gold this year, Germany’s national colours,” said Carsten Brzeski at ING, “At some stage he’ll become Clark Kent again. The economy can’t keep growing at this rate.”  After this news I am sure there will be a few people wiping the sweat of their brows after yesterday’s batch of terrible data. The June industrial production for the eurozone is down 0.1% from a month ago, and the EU trade balance went from -EUR540M to -2.0B. Greece were fed up on being out of the limelight so decided to contract their economy 1.5% in the second quarter from last quarter, the Greek May unemployment rate also hit 12.0% vs 8.5% in May 2009. This meant the GBPEUR rate went up to a staggering 1.217 yesterday.

The US are not having much fun at the moment, Initial Jobless Claims released yesterday showed that the joblessness report remains disappointing. Contrary to the market expectation of 465k it hit 484k. Compared to last week’s 482k figure it is no wonder that the dollar stumbled on this news. However, continuing jobless dropped considerably from 4,537k to 4,570k. This was not enough to stop shares ending in the red for the third day in a row yesterday as the gloomy data encouraged the pessimistic market sentiment.

The UK is remaining quietly in the background apart from BAA strikes being threatened and UK airports facing chaos, also the breaking news that ‘Lad’s Mags’ are suffering due to males migrating online – a travesty.

There are a few bits of data to keep an eye on today, starting with the EMU’s GDP at 10:00 which is followed immediately by the EU Trade Balance. The US are hoping for some good news with the release of Consumer Price Index at 13:30 as well as Advance Retail Sales.

Have an amazing weekend and a lucky Friday the 13^th!