Global Macro Monitor

Unemployment Rates of Selected OECD Countries

Posted on October 3, 2012 by macromon

Nice chart from the BLS.

(click here if chart is not observable)

Posted in Employment | Tagged France, Germany, Italy, Japan, U.S., Unemployment | Leave a comment

France’s Youth Unemployment Problem

Posted on October 2, 2012 by macromon

For the first time since the late 1990s, there are more than three million jobless people in France, with nearly a quarter of under 25s currently unemployed. President Francois Hollande has promised to wage a war on unemployment, and to create 150,000 special youth contracts by 2014. But for young jobseekers, thechallenges remain especially tough. Al Jazeera’s Nadim Baba reports from Paris.

(click here if video is not observable)

Posted in Employment, Euro, France | Tagged France, Youth Unemployment | Leave a comment

Apple’s Textbook Bounce

Posted on October 2, 2012 by macromon

Classic bounce of the 50-day moving average for Apple today. The stock’s been behaving badly and let’s see if the correction is over. Apple’s intraday turn helped reverse today’s market downdraft. Watch Apple as the market tell.

(click here if charts are not observable)

Posted in Apple | Tagged 50-day moving average, Apple, Stock | 2 Comments

Spain’s Rajoy Delays Bailout Request

Posted on October 2, 2012 by macromon

Conditionality is political poison in Spain on the receiving end and in Nor Euro without it. Therein lies Europe’s conundrum.

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Posted in Euro, Germany, Spain | Tagged bailout, Rajoy, Spain | Leave a comment

Apple Behaving Badly

Posted on October 1, 2012 by macromon

After trading up to $676.75 in the first hour, Apple slid more than $20 only to close just off its lows of the day. It also closed below the key support of $660 and the only positive of the day was it was able to bounce off $656, which has held now three times since the August 27th gap open.

If the stock breaks today’s lows, we’re looking for the 50-day moving average at $650 as a big test if this is just a correction of something bigger. Stay tuned.

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Posted in Apple | Tagged Apple Stock | Leave a comment

Oktoberfest: The Relative Cost of a Beer

Posted on October 1, 2012 by macromon

Good ~~stuff~~ suds from the Economist,

ON SEPTEMBER 22nd, the beer started flowing at Oktoberfest in Munich, an annual Bavarian beer festival which confusingly begins at the end of September. Last year, over the course of the 16-day event, visitors glugged 7.5m litres of beer, sold at an average princely price of €9 ($12.50) a litre, which is what a typical large stein holds. Germans love beer and down around 100 litres per person a year. Away from the Oktoberfest beer is readily affordable. Analysts at UBS, a Swiss bank, have calculated that it takes a German earning the national median wage just under seven minutes of work to purchase half a litre of beer at a retail outlet. At the bottom of the pint glass, low wages and high taxes mean that boozers in India must toil for nearly an hour before they have earned enough to quench their thirst.

Click on chart to enlarge and for better resolution.

(click here if chart is not observable)

Posted in General Interest, Germany | Tagged Beer, Economist, Hours worked, Oktoberfest | 2 Comments

Stratfor: Demographics and Geopolitics

Posted on October 1, 2012 by macromon

Good piece by George Friedman on global demographic trends. The solution to declining populations? Technology.

…today, countries like Germany and Japan are facing massive population busts…

It’s not the falling population that’s the problem…worst of all, it’s a falling and aging population in which the older people live for an extended period of time while suffering debilitating diseases and the younger people are too few to take care of them. That’s the problem.