The Day at a Glance | February 7 2023

*Gross Fixed Investment lost momentum in November, although its annual figure surprised to the upside.

*Private Consumption decreased 0.6% in November mainly because of weaker demand for imported goods (-3.7%). However, accumulated figures through November logged a 6.8% increase with respect to the same period of 2021. 

*In the US, December`s trade balance figures logged a -67.4 billion dollar deficit. With this, the year logged a -955.7 billion dollar deficit. Mexico was the United States` second trade partner (behind Canada) as bilateral trade amounted to 793 billion dollars in 2022.

*Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey, declared a state of emergency after an earthquake hit the region that has so far left 3,500 dead. Another 1,600 deaths have been reported in Syria. 

Economic environment

Gross Fixed Investment logged stagnation in November (0.0%). Spending on construction increased 1.4% during the month and was mainly boosted by the non-residential component, which increased 2.8%, while the residential component logged a 1.1% figure. For its part, machinery and equipment decreased -1.0% in November. In a disaggregate manner, imports fell -3.7%, with a decrease in both transportation equipment (-3.7%) and in machinery and equipment (-3.4%). Spending on national equipment remained unchanged (0.0%) by logging offsetting figures; there was a decrease in transportation equipment (-0.3%), while spending on national machinery and equipment increased 1.1%. However, the annual Gross Fixed Investment figure was boosted by a low base comparison. In November, it logged a 6.6% increase, higher than its 6.2% previous reading – and set above the expected 5.5% – and logged the fastest rate of acceleration since June of 2022. This positive annual performance was explained by spending on machinery and equipment with a 12.6% annual increase, due to spending on domestic and imported transportation, which increased 24.2% and 23.09%, respectively. With this, Gross Fixed Investment increased 5.6% with respect to what was observed in the January-November period of 2021; although the index showed that Gross Fixed Investment is still behind pre-pandemic levels. There could be a slight recovery in December`s monthly spending on imported machinery and equipment due to the month`s trade balance figures made known two weeks ago.