New car registrations are just about the earliest monthly signal we get for European demand, and since they are big-ticket items, for consumer confidence too. We got them today, and - well - what they tell us is pretty much 'situation normal'.
And that's despite the latest surge in covid. Timing's important, because covid numbers really took off in Germany in the last week of October, and the daily totals really didn't peak until the end of November. For France and Italy, the timing was about 10days later.
You'd expect that to hit the numbers. But it's not really happened: for the EU as a whole, registrations fell 20.5% yoy, but the monthly movt was 0.5SDs above historic seasonal trends. For Eurozone, numbers were down 20.8% yoy, but the monthly was 0.2SDs above trend. For Germany, registrations fell 31.7%, but the monthly was 0.3SDs above trend. For the rest of the Eurozone, down 14.2% and 0.6SDs above trend.
How does the UK stack up with this: Nov's registrations were up 1.7% yoy and the monthly was 0.5DSs above trend. Same story, incidentally, shows up in today's UK retail numbers: sales volumes up 1.3% mom, with the monthly movt 0.5SDs above trend.
Suggested conclusion? Scary covid-stories are dominating the newspages and sending govts into panic. But Europe's populations - not so much, it seems.
