Forex Flash: Europe contracting, US slowing while Japan gradually improves - BBH

FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - Brown Brothers Harriman analysts note that the take away is that with Europe contracting and the US slowing, Japan's economy appears to be gradually on the mend before the BOJ's massive monetary easing was implemented.

In fact, in a bit of a reversal, they see that the downside economic surprises are coming from Germany now rather than France. They write, “This was true with the flash PMIs seen last week and with the consumption figures released today. German retail sales fell 0.3% in March, largely as expected, but the surprise was that the Feb series was revised to -0.6% from +0.4%. The March decline was the 4th decline in the past five months. In contrast, French consumer spending jumped 1.3%, the largest rise in Feb 2012 and offset the 0.9% decline in Jan and 0.2% decline in Feb.”