The European Implosion Continues

The Eurozone's PMI manufacturing reports for April are out and it's clear that the economy remains in deep depression.

The good news is that in many countries things imploded at a less-worse rate than they did the month before.

The bad news is that manufacturing is still shrinking very rapidly, and the signs are minimal that things are going to turn around.

All of the reports can be found on this page, but here's the quick rundown.

Italian PMI rose slightly to 45.5, up from 44.5 last month. But that's still far below 50, and it makes 21 months of economic contraction.

Spanish PMI again rose slightly, from 44.2 to 44.7, hardly anything to get excited about.

French PMI rose to a 4-month high of.... 44.4. Bad.

The German situation actually got even worse, falling from 49.0 to 48.1.

A distressing number came yesterday from Ireland, which clocked in at 48.0, down from 48.6. Ireland is supposed to be one of Europe's strong recovery countries.

For more PMI readings from around the world, see here --->

And finally Eurozone total PMI hit a four month low of 46.7.