Weekly View: No such a thing as a summer lull

Looking at our GDP tracker for Q3, we see a continuation of the very mild slowdown seen recently. We are now tracking GDP growth of 0.25%-0.27% qoq in August and in September, not far from our forecast of 0.2% qoq for Q3. Meanwhile, there was no "smoking" gun in the minutes of the July Governing Council meeting released this week.

Euro area: Italy - zero growth was no fluke

2Q GDP growth has been particularly disappointing for Italy. However, soft data were decent in 2Q, and remained so this summer. We, thus, investigate the relationship between surveys and hard data and we find that, unfortunately, Q2's stagnation is no fluke.

UK: Bank of England - once more unto the breach

We expect growth to modestly undershoot BoE forecasts and so expect the central bank to cut rates again, to 10bp, in November. Potential fiscal stimulus could reduce the need for another rate cut, but, on balance, we still expect the BoE to move.

Hot Topic: The Netherlands - choppy but not stormy

The Dutch economy underperformed other "core" EU members during the crisis and the recovery. This may help to explain growing EU scepticism. Politics are likely to trump data again as we approach the general election in March. But polls are not consistent with a government taking the country out of the EU.

Next Week:

We expect Euro area M3 money supply growth to come in at 5.1% yoy in July. In August, Euro area composite PMI should edge down to 52.9 from 53.2 in July, with both the manufacturing and service sectors contributing to the deceleration.

See report (link above) for further information.