I’ve been a busy beaver these last few days, conducting training and doing presentations, which explains the lack of posts. Not that there’s much news to pick from.
However, the employment report for February came out on Monday, and the unemployment rate is back down (‘000):
I’m back from my CNY break, and have the aching feet to prove it.
Last week saw a slew of data releases, with three issues from DOS alone on Friday. I’ll get to the IPI numbers later, but this post will cover the latest developments on the external trade front.
Unfortunately, it’s hardly good news (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
Last week’s trade report from Matrade showed continued weakness in external demand for Malaysian products. As I thought they might, my July forecasts came in above realisation (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
Seasonally adjusted exports in July came in –1.2% on the year and –6.7% on the month, while imports were up 9.3% and 2.0% in log terms.
There’s quite frankly not going to be a whole lot of posts until the week after Hari Raya, just a few quick ones on data releases as they come. With luck something like normal posting volume should resume after the Raya break.
Today’s releases of last month’s trade numbers weren’t terribly inspiring (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
Although exports registered an increase of 5.3% y-o-y in log terms, that’s well below the double-digit growth projections from both my models.
Yesterday’s trade report from Matrade indicates that export growth jumped in May, but not as much as my models say they should have (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
Exports hit 7.0% on the year in log terms (6.7% in percentage terms) and 2.0% higher than last month’s level. Crude oil exports fell, but this was offset by higher LNG and CPO exports.
Today’s external trade report from Matrade suggests that all the weirdness from the beginning of the year has finally settled down and we’re finally seeing some true trends. Unfortunately, the trend doesn’t look very good (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
I’ve been out of commission for much of the past week or so due to an infection, hence the lack of posts. But since I’m hopefully on the mend, I should be resuming blogging more regularly from today. There’s a lot to catch up on, so I’ll be spacing out the posts over the next few days.
Now on to the latest data release. March 2012 external trade numbers shows that the February trade was an aberration or largely a factor of CNY. They're certainly well below what I predicted last month (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
So much for trade continuing to be depressed. How much of this is simply trade orders pushed back because of CNY, I don’t know, but based on Tuesday’s external trade report, things are perking up on the external front (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
Yesterday’s external trade report showed Malaysia’s exports following the regional trend (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
Like industrial production (see my previous post), Malaysia’s trade numbers came in higher than expected (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
Both on a seasonally adjusted and non-seasonally adjusted basis, exports came in at around RM2 billion more than my forecast models predicted, though that’s still only about 0.4 standard deviations from the point forecast.
Mean reversion, here we come. As expected, November export numbers tripped up a bit (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
Friday’s trade numbers underscore the resilience of the economy as shown by industrial production. Not quite out of the forecast band, but about 1 standard deviation away from the predicted value (RM millions):
September is one of those rare months when the numbers hit my forecast almost exactly, so forgive me for crowing a bit (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
Not that its much comfort – export growth was as flat as an iPad2. If there is anything more to be positive about, it’s that E&E exports might be turning the corner (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
Almost lost in the shuffle due to the budget announcement on Friday, August’s trade numbers don’t provide much grounds for optimism that GDP growth in the second half would meet the government’s forecasts (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
July’s trade report shows realisation almost exactly hitting last month’s forecasts. None of its good news though (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
Hard to say whether we’re seeing incipient signs of recovery, but yesterday’s report from Matrade shows that Malaysia’s external trade has levelled out (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
After two straight months of declines, both exports and imports swung up…slightly. After all the disruptions to trade through the first half of the year, though, any positive signs are welcome.
As forecast, trade in May turned out lower than April’s (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
Seems like someone made a mistake somewhere, as both February and March export data were revised downwards by about RM2 billion or so, although import data remained the same. Quite a lot as revisions go, but there was that one year when they missed an entire port’s worth of trade…
The upshot of it all is trade growth doesn’t look quite so hot as it did last month (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
I missed last month’s trade post because of my trip to Korea, and it seems I missed a lot (log annual and monthly changes; seasonally adjusted):
Seasonally adjusted trade data for February and March have been really solid, which should give some support to my hypothesis that 1Q growth will be better than decent.
December’s outsized trade numbers didn’t looked sustainable, as yesterday’s trade report proved:
Posts
All Comments
