Australia & New Zealand Rapid Response Australia Retail Sales (Nov.) Although retail sales bounced back with a vengeance in November, that result largely reflected a one-off boost from Black Friday sales. With underlying momentum in consumer spending weaker than the... 9th January 2024 · 3 mins read
Japan Economics Focus Long-term debt sustainability still under threat The recent sharp fall in Japan’s ratio of public debt to GDP reflects one-off factors that won’t be sustained. While the influence of rising bond yields on the trajectory of the public finances will... 8th January 2024 · 18 mins read
US Housing Market Update 2023 in review In what was an extremely volatile year for the housing market, we made two key forecasting errors. Firstly, we didn’t anticipate the extent of the rise in mortgage rates. Because of that, we... 5th January 2024 · 4 mins read
Canada Economics Weekly Housing market starting to improve Conditions in the housing market seem to be improving, with the local real estate board data pointing to a big improvement in the home sales-to-new listing ratio in December. While the unseasonably... 5th January 2024 · 5 mins read
US Economics Weekly Fed still coy about QT end-game The minutes of the mid-December FOMC meeting did not dissuade us that the Fed will start to cut interest rates from this March onwards. Despite now projecting more interest rate cuts this year, Fed... 5th January 2024 · 6 mins read
UK Economics Weekly Are we too downbeat on the economy in 2024? The economic news over the past week has highlighted three upsides to our forecast that the economy will stagnate in 2024. First, the fall in some mortgage rates to below 4% means the effect of future... 5th January 2024 · 7 mins read
Canada Rapid Response Canada Labour Force Survey (Dec.) The unchanged level of employment in December is consistent with the message from the business surveys that labour demand has weakened significantly in recent months. Nonetheless, with wage growth... 5th January 2024 · 2 mins read
US Rapid Response US Employment Report (Dec.) The slightly bigger-than-expected 216,000 gain in non-farm payrolls (consensus estimate was 170,000) in December coupled with a second consecutive 0.4% m/m gain in average hourly earnings means that... 5th January 2024 · 2 mins read
UK Housing Market Update Lower interest rates pave the way for a stronger 2024 Our forecast of earlier Bank Rate cuts mean that mortgage rates will be significantly lower than we had anticipated this year, which will lead to a stronger recovery in demand from mortgaged buyers... 5th January 2024 · 4 mins read
UK Commercial Property Rapid Response S&P Global/ CIPS Construction PMI (Dec.) The rise in the headline CIPS construction PMI from 45.5 in November to 46.8 in December was driven by the increase in the housing balance, while the commercial reading fell further. Looking ahead, we... 5th January 2024 · 2 mins read
UK Housing Market Rapid Response Halifax House Prices (Dec. 2023) The big 1.1% m/m increase in the Halifax house price index confirms that falls in mortgage rates are translating into renewed increases in house prices. Given further recent falls in mortgage rates... 5th January 2024 · 3 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Japanese stocks will continue to underperform As we had anticipated, the outperformance of the Topix against the S&P 500 has unraveled as the yen has strengthened against the dollar. And with Japanese manufacturing losing ground abroad and... 5th January 2024 · 6 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Why the RBA will ease sooner than most expect Although the analyst consensus expects the RBA to cut rates only in September, we're sticking with our view that the RBA will loosen policy as early as May. For one thing, the household cash flow... 5th January 2024 · 7 mins read
Global Economics Update What to make of the latest disruption in the Red Sea The redirecting of trade ships away from the Red Sea and the associated rise in shipping costs are unlikely to lead to a resurgence in global inflation. However, if the warfare underpinning the... 4th January 2024 · 5 mins read
