More Eye-catching Pictures

Scooped up from this pdf by the venerable Random Spaniard, the pair of charts on the left provide considerable grist for the gossip of the grumbling class. They show, respectively, foreign investment in Spain and Spanish investment outside its own borders. Notable are the following features:

1). It appears that investors from other countries did not jump onto the euphoria balloon that dominated the domestic economy until it was beginning to deflate. The spike in direct investment begins in early 2007 and ends about one year later. Note that this period coincides with the demise of a very long period of enchantment with the Spanish stock market (the blue line in the graph).

2). Also worth mentioning is that direct foreign investment in Spain has not gone negative, settling down (as of last February) at levels last seen in 2004.

3). After a very long period corporations primarily reinvesting profits outside of the country (duly noted at the time by the press), Spanish direct investment in foreign countries has turned negative. The plummet from 100 billion euros to less than zero in two years is simple remarkable.

4). In the direct foreign investment account, Spain is currently a net beneficiary for what looks like the first time since 2004.

5). It's possible that, at least until very recently, the net loss of investment in the cartera component - representing market-traded assets - represents the flight away from the euro that has characterized much of the financial crisis.

We asked, by the way, readers to contribute their guesses as to the cause of Spain's resilient goods export sector. One has done so through an entry at news.cat - he believes the numbers are falsified by the government.

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