Filtered by Subscriptions: Emerging Markets Economics Use setting Emerging Markets Economics
The aggregate EM manufacturing PMI edged up in November, which adds to the evidence that EM GDP growth has steadied in Q4 after a slowdown in Q3. The improvement has been driven by the BRIC economies, while manufacturing in the rest of the emerging world …
3rd December 2018
Frontier market dollar debt markets have been rattled in recent months. Part of this is due to the fall in oil prices, which helps to explain the widening of spreads in Venezuela and Nigeria. But that’s not the whole story. Investors seem to be …
30th November 2018
Aggregate EM economic growth slowed to its weakest rate in over a year in Q3, but the data for October provide early signs that growth has started to stabilise in Q4. … EM growth slowed in Q3, but stabilising in …
29th November 2018
The latest fall in oil prices means EM inflation is likely to rise more slowly. While we still expect a majority of EM central banks to hike interest rates, lower energy inflation may delay tightening in a few countries, including Hungary, Colombia and …
28th November 2018
The recent drop in oil prices will help Turkey’s balance of payments adjustment and should boost the terms of trade and growth in large EM oil importers including South Africa and India. The obvious losers are the oil producers, although the fall in …
26th November 2018
The fall in oil prices over the past couple of months will drag down fuel inflation across the emerging world, but it probably won’t be enough to prompt policymakers to slow the pace of monetary tightening. After all, the impact of weaker fuel inflation …
22nd November 2018
A rise in inflation and higher interest rates mean Turkey and Argentina are likely to experience deep recessions over the next couple of quarters. However, whereas the fall in the lira should help to mitigate the downturn in Turkey, the decline in the …
20th November 2018
The very early evidence suggests that EM GDP growth steadied at the start of Q4, as stronger export growth offset a slowdown in consumption. But activity is likely to weaken over the course of 2019. … EM growth holding up in early Q4, but set to …
16th November 2018
EM export growth remained strong in September, and probably picked up in October. But we think that a combination of escalating tariffs, lower commodity prices, and weaker economic growth in developed markets will cause export growth to slow sharply in …
14th November 2018
Although the MSCI Emerging Markets (EM) Index has recovered a little in the past couple of weeks, it is still below its level a month ago, and we suspect that it will fall much further by the end of next year. … EM equities likely to remain on the …
Our Tracker suggests that, in net terms, capital outflows from the emerging world picked up to about $100bn in the three months to October, the largest since “Trumpflation” in early 2017. But the pace of outflows appears to have eased more recently. … …
13th November 2018
The large current account deficits in Turkey and Argentina that precipitated currency crises this year are now narrowing and external positions are in decent shape in most major EMs. But there are a handful of countries, such as Romania and the …
7th November 2018
Strains in the balance of payments of some EMs last quarter seem to have been driven mainly by a decline in flows to bond markets. These flows now seem to have stabilised, but financial conditions have tightened beyond the usual suspects of Turkey and …
6th November 2018
The run of consecutive declines in the EM manufacturing PMI came to an end at the start of this quarter, thanks to an improvement in the surveys across the BRIC economies. Moreover, the breakdown of the PMI showed that the slump in EM exports this year …
2nd November 2018
Our EM GDP Tracker suggests that growth eased in Q3 on the back of weakness in Emerging Europe and Latin America. This seems to be due to a slowdown in consumer-facing sectors rather than industry. … EM growth eases in …
30th October 2018
Classic EM crises have caused waves, but have rarely triggered global downturns. And in any case the current risk of a 1980s-style EM crisis is low. The bigger risk is of a China ‘hard landing’ which could result in a painful slowdown in global growth …
29th October 2018
A handful of the more vulnerable Frontier Markets, including Ukraine, Pakistan and Bahrain, have received (or are close to getting) IMF or bilateral funding, but external risks remain a key concern. For one thing, meeting the conditionality of these …
26th October 2018
Price pressures have continued to strengthen in the emerging world. Our aggregate EM inflation measure jumped from 3.8% y/y in August to 4.2% y/y in September, its fastest pace since early 2016. The rise has occurred across all EM regions and the drivers …
23rd October 2018
Higher oil prices have weighed on consumer conditions in the emerging world recently, but while the impact of higher energy inflation is set to fade in the months ahead, we still expect consumer spending to weaken over the next year or so. In most cases, …
19th October 2018
The collapses in the Turkish lira and Argentine peso last quarter have caused bank and sovereign debt risks, respectively, to mount in those countries. Meanwhile, financial vulnerabilities are brewing in a handful of other countries. … Turkey and …
17th October 2018
Our Tracker suggests that capital outflows from the emerging world remained small last month, and flows into EM bond and equity markets have recovered as the crises in Turkey and Argentina have eased. However, the more recent rise in US treasury yields …
15th October 2018
Agreements signed in recent weeks indicate that the US may be willing to de-escalate trade disputes in order to achieve face-saving deals. Elsewhere, growing economic headwinds suggest that EM export growth will slow over the coming months. … USMCA shows …
12th October 2018
Economic growth has held up far better than financial markets in the emerging world over the past few months. But while some countries will continue to do well, EM growth in aggregate is now slowing and will continue to decelerate over the coming year. … …
9th October 2018
The rise in oil prices to $85pb brings most major oil producers’ budgets close to balance (and in a few cases a large surplus) and could open the door for fiscal policy to be loosened in a few countries in the Gulf. However, if the rise in oil prices is …
3rd October 2018
The fall in September’s EM manufacturing PMI painted a gloomy picture and adds to the mounting evidence that growth in parts of the emerging world faltered in Q3. What’s more, data at the granular level suggest that EM export growth continued to slow. … …
1st October 2018
EM inflation increased to its highest level in more than a year and a half in August, and we think that this has further to run over the coming months. One consequence is that the monetary policy in much of the emerging world is likely to tighten. … EM …
28th September 2018
Having picked up last quarter, activity data for July suggest that aggregate EM GDP growth weakened at the start of Q3. More timely survey and hard data for August paint a mixed picture, but overall it looks like EM growth is shaping up to be softer in Q3 …
27th September 2018
Sovereign balance sheets in most of the large emerging economies are in reasonable shape, but those in a few of the smaller Frontier Market economies are very fragile. And investors’ concerns have ratcheted up in recent weeks. The political importance …
26th September 2018
The raft of Q2 GDP data released over the past month or so showed that aggregate EM GDP growth was actually a little stronger in Q2 than in Q1. However, more timely hard activity data for July and survey data for August suggest that EMs have lost some …
21st September 2018
Even though emerging market (EM) assets generally weakened again over the past month, and some have now fallen a very long way, we still forecast that there is considerably more pain to come. … Trouble for EM assets probably far from …
20th September 2018
The latest EM auto sales figures echo survey data and financial indicators in suggesting that economic disruption following recent market turbulence has so far been contained to Turkey and Argentina. Other economies – even those that suffered significant …
19th September 2018
EM exports have shrugged off trade tensions in recent months, but US tariffs due to take effect later this month will add to headwinds. Softer commodity prices and weaker global growth will also weigh on exporters across the emerging world. … EM exports: …
18th September 2018
Last month’s currency crises in Turkey and Argentina triggered broad-based weakness in EM financial markets, but our Capital Flows Tracker suggests that aggregate outflows were relatively modest. … Emerging Markets Capital Flows Monitor …
13th September 2018
In previous EM currency crises, real interest rates have increased (on average) by around 10.5%-11.0%-pts in the following year and remained more than 6.5%-pts above pre-crisis levels over the subsequent two years. In Argentina, real interest rates are …
In the three years after a currency crisis, EMs almost always experience a collapse in imports, but the performance of exports is more mixed. Argentina looks similar to those economies that have seen little impact on exports. Turkey’s large manufacturing …
12th September 2018
The improvement in EM balance sheets over the past five years means that macroeconomic strains resulting from recent currency falls have been contained to Turkey and Argentina. Nonetheless, those EMs that have suffered large currency declines do not …
10th September 2018
The EM sell-off appears to have become more broad-based in the last few days, although there is little evidence that – outside Turkey and Argentina – the market turmoil is resulting in macroeconomic strains. The bigger concern over the next 12-18 months …
5th September 2018
The further fall in the EM manufacturing PMI in August adds to the signs that EM growth lost momentum in Q3. The surveys also show that price pressures are building in parts of the emerging world. … EM manufacturing growth continues to …
4th September 2018
The sell-off in EM currencies has cast the spotlight onto external vulnerabilities in the emerging world, although there are important nuances to take into account. In this Update, we take a closer look at these. In short, they generally paint Argentina …
31st August 2018
EM GDP growth appears to have been stronger over Q2 than it was in Q1. However, the monthly activity figures show that EMs were losing momentum at the end of Q2 and started Q3 on a weaker footing. … EMs start Q3 on weaker …
30th August 2018
Frontier financial markets have endured a torrid 2018, but this hasn’t been accompanied by a deterioration in the hard activity data. Admittedly, growth in the largest frontier economy, Nigeria, slowed in Q2. But that was due to weakness in the oil …
29th August 2018
The extent of the falls in EM currencies seen since April have generally been closely correlated with the degree of countries’ external vulnerabilities. On almost all measures, Turkey and Argentina stand out. Arguably, the Brazilian real has fallen …
24th August 2018
Asset prices in Turkey and Argentina have fallen dramatically in recent weeks, while the moves in other countries’ markets look similar to previous EM sell-offs over the past decade. It’s still very early to gauge whether there has been an economic hit, …
23rd August 2018
EM central banks continued to tighten monetary policy in August. Policymakers in Argentina and Indonesia raised interest rates to support their currencies amid fears of contagion from the crisis in Turkey. But elsewhere the shift towards tightening has …
21st August 2018
The main factor weighing on EM assets recently has been worries about contagion from the crisis in Turkey. But even if these fears subside, there are plenty of other reasons to be pessimistic about the outlook. … Turkey’s crisis just one of many threats …
17th August 2018
Both Turkey and Argentina have now suffered currency crises this year. In previous EM currency crises, economies experienced a sharp slowdown in GDP growth, averaging 5-6%-pts, and a rise in inflation, averaging 4-5%-pts, in the following couple of years. …
16th August 2018
Our Tracker shows that, in net terms, capital outflows from the emerging world eased in July, but the recent market turmoil suggests that the pace of outflows probably accelerated again in August. … Emerging Markets Capital Flows Monitor …
14th August 2018
EM currencies have come under pressure over the past few days as Turkey’s crisis has escalated, but history suggests that such sentiment-driven sell-offs tend to be short-lived. We wouldn’t expect the majority of EM central banks to react to the latest …
13th August 2018
Aside from the impact on a few small neighbouring countries, most notably Bulgaria, the direct risk of contagion from Turkey’s crisis to other EMs is fairly low. However, Turkey’s problems may add to the accumulating negative sentiment towards emerging …
10th August 2018
Early signs suggest that the first round of Washington’s tariffs on China had little effect on EM trade in July. Growing headwinds, however, suggest that export growth will slow in late 2018 and into 2019. … EM exports shrug off tariffs, but worrying …
9th August 2018
