Italian industrial production come in disappointingly weak in April - ING

Paolo Pizzoli, ING's senior economist covering Italy, EMU and Greece, notes that Italian industrial production data turned out softer than consensus expectations, with the investment component being the main driver.

• "Italian industrial production came in disappointingly weak in April, posting a seasonally adjusted 0.7% month on month contraction (-1% MoM in March). The working days adjusted measure, better suited to monitor the underlying trend, posted a 1.5 YoY contraction (-1.6% in March). Admittedly, the April number might have been affected by calendar effects due to the timing of the 25 April national holiday, but we feel this only provides a partial explanation of the poor monthly turnout.
• The breakdown by broad aggregates shows that investment goods (-2.5% MoM), intermediate goods (-0.7% MoM) and consumer goods (-0.5% MoM) were all in negative territory, with energy alone posting a monthly expansion (+3.6%).
  
• No major change from the sector breakdown, but a confirmation that sectors topping the production rankings in 2018 have clearly slowed down over the first four months of 2019. In the January 2019 - April 2019 period annual working day adjusted data shows that energy production (2.9% YoY) leads the pack, followed by food and tobacco (+2.2% YoY) and electronic equipment (+0.5% YoY), with electrical equipment and chemicals hardly expanding. At the other end of the spectrum stand coke and refining (-7.7% YoY), transport equipment (-3.6% YoY), metal products (-3.7% YoY) and pharmaceuticals (-3.6% YoY).
• The poor reading of the investment component is worth noting, as it signals the underlying weakness in the national accounts investment component already shown by 1Q19 GDP data might be continuing over 2Q19."