Spanning the whole economy, last week’s reports were positive overall but mostly more of the same. Manufacturing continues to slog along with no indications of recovery, despite the first signs of stabilization in the oil-drilling sector. Retail sales, on the other hand, show the consumer driving even faster economic growth.

After a couple of posts on risky business (the Brexit vote and negative rates), let’s take a step back and look at the big picture. It’s easy to get caught up in individual stories, but we need to understand how they fit together—and what the market is saying about it all.

The big news today in the financial world is that, for the first time on record, the yield on the German 10-year government bond dropped below zero. This is just the latest step in the ongoing decline in interest rates. In fact, the Japanese 15-year government bond recently went negative as well.

The only major report last week was Friday’s release of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. It remained essentially stable, with a small decline from 94.7 to 94.3.

On June 23, Britain will vote on whether or not to leave the European Union, popularly known as Brexit (British exit). As the date approaches, concerns have been rising that the referendum might actually pass. What would it mean if it did?

Last week’s data was more mixed than in recent weeks, with a very weak employment report and worse-than-expected results in the service sector offsetting continued positive news on manufacturing and consumer income and spending.

Last week’s data was more mixed than in recent weeks, with continued positive news in the housing market offset by weaker-than-expected results in business investment. On balance, both the strong trends in consumer demand and the relative weakness in business continue, and the economy was shown to have done better in the first quarter than was originally thought.

Another Federal Reserve official, Philadelphia Fed president Patrick Harker, has weighed in on rates, projecting two to three hikes over the rest of 2016, including a June increase. Much of the commentary on his statement and those of other Fed members has focused on the potential effects on the stock market—specifically, the risk that higher rates may pull the market down.

Once again, last week’s news was mostly positive, with housing starts and sales beating expectations, industrial production and manufacturing up, and the Fed releasing a surprisingly upbeat set of minutes that painted the U.S. economy as well along the road to recovery.

Combined with the positive results from previous weeks, this good data continues to support a recovery in growth for the second quarter.

Last week’s data was surprisingly positive, with both retail sales and consumer confidence beating expectations substantially, accompanied by upward revisions to past months. As consumers account for about two-thirds of the U.S. economy, this is extremely positive news.