ANNUAL AVERAGE EUROPE INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION IN AUGUST WAS AT THE HIGHEST POINT IN NEARLY A DECADE.
Annual average Europe Industrial Production in August was at the highest point in nearly a decade, only 0.7% below the record high set in 2008. Annual Industrial Production is expanding (up 2.9% from the prior year), but the pace of growth has edged down over the last four months, indicating a transition to the back side of the business cycle. Trends in historically reliable leading indicators, including the Europe Leading Indicator and the Europe Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), suggest that the recent downward movement in the annual growth rate is not simply volatility but rather denotes the start of a longer business-cycle declining trend (slowing growth or recession). Movements in the Indicator and the PMI suggest at least three more quarters of rate-of-change descent for Production.