Global Markets: Promising U.S. manufacturing data

By MarketsFarm

WINNIPEG, Sept. 1 (MarketsFarm) – The following is a glance at the news moving markets in Canada and globally.

United States manufacturing activity showed growth in August, marking the largest rate of expansion since late 2018. Data from the Institute for Supply Management showed expansion was faster than economists predicted, boosted by orders increasing and declining inventories. The positive manufacturing activity was characterized as “a bright spot in an otherwise struggling economy” in a report by Bloomberg.

Unemployment has stayed under 8 per cent in countries that use the euro currency, but that is expected to change as government jobless supports begin to expire in September. Government programs temporarily subsidized workers’ wages if companies cut their hours, which kept millions of workers on the job- however, those supports may expire before COVID-19 is over. “We expect a second wave of job losses towards the end of the year and going into 2021 although the peak in unemployment should still remain below the highs seen in the aftermath of the financial crisis,” said an analyst at ING Bank.

Brazil’s economy contracted by a record 9.7 per cent in the second quarter of 2020 as COVID-19 lockdowns spurred a recession. The largest Latin American economy was hit particularly hard by the pandemic, though lockdown restrictions have eased.

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