There will be no bath tub shaped recovery in Singapore and indeed it could be a V as they revealed that Q2 GDP rose 20.4% q/o/q and that is well above the consensus gain of 13.4%. They raised their ’09 GDP forecast range to -4% to -6% from -6% to -9%. Australia June business confidence went positive for the first time since Dec ’07 and the Taiwanese Premier said its economic cooperation deal with China will get done before year end in response to a story Monday that it was being pushed into 2010. All 3 stories in addition to the US rally are sending Asian stocks higher. The one economic downer was the July German ZEW investor confidence # in their economy which was 8.3 points less than expected and down 5.3 points from June. The NFIB small business optimism index fell a touch in June but those that plan to hire rose to the most since Oct, but is still negative. The Cap Ex and Plan to Increase Inventory components both fell as many watch the CIT story. Retail Sales, PPI and Business Inventories are the other key data points today.
