Latest data released by INSEE - 10 July 2020

  • Prior -20.1%; revised to -20.6%
  • Industrial production -23.4% vs -24.0% y/y expected
  • Prior -34.2%; revised to -35.0%
  • Manufacturing production +22.0% vs +22.8% m/m expected
  • Prior -21.9%; revised to -22.3%
  • Manufacturing production -25.2% vs -23.6% y/y expected
  • Prior -37.1%; revised to -37.9%

All this tells us is that factory activity bottomed out in April and saw a strong rebound in May amid the easing of lockdown restrictions. That's about all we can extrapolate here as conditions are still extremely subdued as seen with the annual estimates.

There's also not much to gauge the strength of the recovery as we will have to see how much of this is due to working through order backlogs and the balance between that and new orders coming in i.e. demand conditions.

I reckon we'll only get a better sense of the situation and the economic recovery in July to August, or perhaps even later this year.