Eurozone Economy Contracts Five Straight Months

...but stocks are higher in the new year. Yup! Makes perfect sense... to the delusional! 

from Marketwatch:

The final December reading of the Markit purchasing-managers index for the manufacturing sector rose to 46.9 from a 28-month low of 46.4 in November, matching an earlier estimate.

“Euro-zone manufacturing is clearly undergoing another recession,” said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit. “Despite the rate of decline easing slightly in December, production appears to have been collapsing across the single-currency area at a quarterly rate of approximately 1.5% in the final quarter of 2011.”

For the second month in a row, all nations covered by the survey reported a decline in output.

Williamson said it was particularly worrying to see new orders falling at a far faster rate than output. That indicates firms have relied on orders placed earlier in the year to sustain current production levels, he said.