Sometimes manipulated, more often expressing half-truths, and mostly misinterpreted: economic statistics are never an absolute truth.
GDP, inflation, unemployment… quarter by quarter, the market moves to the ups and downs of these figures, taken as gospel. Official figures are seldom questioned by economists and the media. Yet experts have shown that they can be manipulated, or in a majority of cases, they can express only half-truths. A half-truth is to say, on January 2015, that the Swiss franc’s 20% appreciation was harmful to exporters, and not to mention that all of Swiss imports were getting a 20% discount.