World ind prd'n slumps in March

We now have a few more industrial production series for March.  However, we still don't yet have IP for the European majors.  That's another week to 10 days away.

The first chart shows the year-on-year percentage changes in industrial production and real GDP  for the world (my calculations).  Note different scales.  It is tempting, looking at this chart, to think that world GDP won't fall as much in the Covid Crash as it did during the GFC.  However, we only have February and March data, and, apart from China, April data are likely to be worse.  As yet, I haven't done a calculation for Q1 GDP, but it is likely to be sharply negative.

And, the PMI data suggest that the downturn will be worse than during the GFC.  This is my "long-series" PMI  calculation, using all the PMI time series I have that go back to before the GFC, including also services PMIs, because (unusually) services have been as badly hit this cycle as manufacturing.  This indicator suggests the world downturn will be worse than the GFC.  It depends, I think, on how rapidly economic activity bounces back.  And I suspect it will be a slow recovery.