Charting the Global Economy: Disparity Tests a Resilient Europe

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(Bloomberg) — Euro-area economic growth picked up slightly in the third quarter, yet activity in nearly half the bloc is stagnating at best and tempering optimism of a broader recovery.

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The disparity hasn’t escaped those at the European Central Bank. Concerns were raised at the ECB’s September meeting that economic resilience was largely due to healthy expansion in Spain, and that others weren’t doing well.

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With the end of the longest government shutdown in the US, investors and policymakers now await announcements from statistical agencies on updated schedules for economic data. Private-sector reports have shown the job market remains soft while consumer anxiety builds.

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Here are some of the charts that appeared on Bloomberg this week on the latest developments in the global economy, markets and geopolitics:

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Europe

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Third-quarter output in the euro zone rose 0.2% from the previous three months. At the same time, countries representing 49% of the currency union’s gross domestic product failed to record any expansion at all during the period, with Germany — the continent’s biggest economy — joining Italy in stagnating.

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UK economic growth nearly ground to a halt in the third quarter after September’s activity was hit by a cyberattack on Jaguar Land Rover and the fear of looming tax hikes in the Labour government’s upcoming budget. Gross domestic product rose just 0.1% compared with 0.3% in the second quarter, the Office for National Statistics said

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Norway’s underlying inflation rate surprised by jumping to the highest level in seven months, threatening to derail a plan by the nation’s central bank to stick to easing through 2028. Underlying consumer-price growth excluding energy rose to 3.4% in October, led by price gains for furniture, electronics and food.

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US

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Democrats trounced Trump’s Republicans last week in elections where cost-of-living anxieties loomed large. To be sure, analysts caution against reading too much into off-year ballots, and many Trump policies have yet to fully kick in. For now, with the job market cooling, consumer surveys and political polls find that Americans are downbeat about the economy and the president’s handling of it.

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US import volumes are projected to slow through the year-end holidays and into 2026, as tariff uncertainty weighs on cargo owners and the outlook for consumer spending remains clouded. Still, tariff mitigation efforts by retailers earlier in the year may have spared Americans major disruptions like shortages and price spikes during the holiday shopping season, according to the National Retail Federation. 

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More Americans than ever are falling behind on their car payments. The share of subprime borrowers at least 60 days past due on their auto loans rose to 6.65% in October, the highest in data going back to 1994, according to Fitch Ratings. 

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Asia

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China’s collapsing investment is as unprecedented as it is hard to explain. A plunge estimated at more than 11% in October from a year earlier was the worst single-month performance since the initial Covid lockdowns at the start of 2020. A further crash in investment could prove destabilizing by affecting an activity that makes up nearly half of China’s gross domestic product. Yet economists are still struggling to square the unprecedented contraction with other statistics or to fully decipher its cause.