Stronger-than-expected data out of the US have pushed up US yields more than elsewhere and drove the greenback higher against most currencies for the first time since its cyclical peak in October of last year. While US economic resilience may keep the …
23rd February 2023
The recent resilience of economic activity has left us comfortable with our view that the Bank of England will raise interest rates from 4.00% now to a peak of 4.50%, rather than to 4.25% as analysts expect, and keep rates at that higher level all year. …
After a stellar performance for most of 2022, the Gulf economies are slowing. Primarily, that has reflected the impact of oil production cuts agreed with the rest of OPEC+ which is weighing on growth in oil sectors. And in the UAE and Qatar at least, the …
Data for the fourth quarter showed a widespread deterioration in occupier demand in all three sectors. This was worst in some of the big six and West coast metros, with markets like Phoenix, Portland and San Jose joining San Francisco and Chicago in …
22nd February 2023
The latest data suggest that current account deficits in the region’s major economies narrowed towards the end of last year, which is particularly good news for Colombia and Chile. Both were running alarmingly large shortfalls last year which helps to …
The January CPI data provided mixed signals about developments in underlying inflation. The CPI excluding food and energy and the CPI excluding the eight most volatile components each rose by just 0.1% m/m, which were the lowest gains since early 2021. …
The first year of the war in Ukraine has had an enormous impact on the country’s economy and left it highly dependent on financing from allies. Russia’s economy has contracted too, but it weathered the impact of Western sanctions better than expected and …
The war in Ukraine, which marks its one year anniversary on Friday, has had a profound impact on the emerging world. Ukraine’s economy has collapsed, while Russia’s has contracted too even though the imposition of sanctions has not been as severe as …
The resurgence in activity and employment in January means that there is little chance of the economy falling into recession in the first quarter and we now expect GDP growth of 1.5% annualised. That said, the retail sales data in particular appear to …
21st February 2023
In a crowded field given the FY23/24 Union Budget and the RBI’s more-hawkish-than-expected policy announcement, the Adani short-selling crisis has been the main story over the past month. So far at least, there are few signs of broader contagion. Foreign …
While the recent economic data have surprised on the upside, property market indicators were broadly worse than expected in Q4. Occupier demand softened, particularly in the office and apartment sectors, as concerns about the outlook weighed on firms …
17th February 2023
Capital value falls accelerated in Q4 as euro-zone all-property yields surged higher. And although rents increased in both offices and industrial, the outsized jump in yields meant euro-zone all-property capital values fell by about 8% q/q – the …
A raft of strong data out of the US have poured cold water on the idea that its economy has tumbled into recession at the start of 2023. And this comes after GDP data revealed that the euro-zone and UK economies (narrowly) avoided outright contraction …
16th February 2023
The survey data suggest that the modest decline in mortgage rates since October falls a long way short of what would be required for house prices to bottom out. The fall in market interest rates since the “mini” budget has allowed the average quoted …
The 6.9% annual rise in Australia’s trimmed mean CPI in Q4 was stronger than the RBA’s November forecast and has prompted some hawkish rhetoric from the Bank at its February meeting. Indeed, we now expect the cash rate to peak at 4.10% in May instead of …
15th February 2023
The government formally nominated Kazuo Ueda as the next Bank of Japan Governor at yesterday’s Diet session. Since the initial announcement of his candidature last Friday , analysts and investors have been looking for clarity on Mr Ueda’s views. So far …
Since the full effects of the previous surge in energy prices and the hike in interest rates have yet to be felt, we still think the economy will succumb to a recession this year. Admittedly, pandemic savings and the government’s handouts appear to have …
8th February 2023
The latest business surveys suggest that the euro-zone will stagnate or suffer only a mild recession, but the money and credit data paint a much gloomier picture. Net lending was negative in December and lower than in any month since 2014, when the …
7th February 2023
Overview – We think prices will ease back in the coming months as optimism about China’s reopening is tempered and slower economic activity in advanced economies weighs on demand. However, the prospect of Fed easing and stronger economic growth in 2024 …
3rd February 2023
The broad-based rally in “risky” assets that got underway in Q4 of last year has continued in 2023 so far, with global equities, developed market (DM) REITs, corporate bonds and industrial metals all off to a strong start to the year. Those gains have …
31st January 2023
While the economic outlook in much of the world has turned less downbeat in recent weeks, the prospects for Sub-Saharan Africa’s two biggest economies have, if anything, got gloomier due to homegrown economic troubles. In South Africa, power cuts – a …
The further falls in the Egyptian pound over the past month will push up inflation and prompt the central bank to deliver more monetary tightening, but there are already signs that the benefits of a weaker currency are materialising. The government …
We think the rapid economic recovery in China will lead to further gains in equities in China and other emerging markets (EM) this year. Despite some recent weakness, equities in China have rallied since the end of October, as a shift toward living with …
The outlook for Latin America has turned more positive at the start of the year as China has shifted away from its zero-Covid policy and commodity prices have rallied. But this comes against a backdrop in which regional growth is showing clearer signs …
30th January 2023
Although there has been some good news for risky assets over the past couple of months, we still think they will struggle before long as economic growth disappoints in major advanced economies. The global equity market rally that began at the back end of …
The Lunar New Year holiday wasn’t quite back to normal this year as fears of spreading COVID to elderly relatives prevented many households from returning to their hometowns – long-distance journeys, while the highest since the start of the pandemic, …
Asian currencies have continued to rebound against the US dollar over the past month, and most are now up by around 5-15% against the greenback since early November. Optimism around China’s reopening and expectations for a Fed policy pivot have been the …
Yields have continued to surprise on the upside, with the all-property equivalent yield rising by 106bps in the three months to December. That matches the worst months of the GFC, and even though rental growth has held up capital values ended the year …
27th January 2023
Optimism around China’s rapid re-opening and stronger-than-expected data out of Europe have put continued pressure on the US dollar over the past month or so. In turn, we have revised down our forecasts for the greenback against major currencies. But we …
26th January 2023
The growth outlook for 2023 across Central and Eastern Europe has brightened a bit over the past month. Wholesale European natural gas prices have continued to fall sharply and survey measures of activity have generally improved. The outlook for external …
The outlook for emerging markets is looking better than it did just a few weeks ago. Most obviously, China’s shift to living with COVID means that its economy will rebound far sooner than we had previously thought. That will provide a lift to countries …
24th January 2023
The sharp fall in hiring intentions in the Bank of Canada’s Business Outlook Survey suggests that the 104,000 surge in employment in December is not a sign of things to come. The survey points to a slowdown in average monthly employment growth to just …
23rd January 2023
First came the inversion of the yield curve. Next the index of leading indicators began to fall. Then the survey-based activity indicators plunged well below the 50 mark. Finally, this week we learned that the weakness had spread to the hard data on …
19th January 2023
India has historically remained unaligned geopolitically but we made the case last year that, in a fracturing global economy , it was more likely to lean towards a US-led bloc and away from a China-led bloc. Events over the past month have strengthened …
18th January 2023
The past month has brought a string of positive developments on the activity and inflation side. The biggest news has been China’s decision to throw in the towel on its zero-COVID policy, which brightened the prospects for the world’s largest economy …
13th January 2023
There are growing signs that housing market activity may be close to a trough. The decline in mortgage rates over the past couple of months has led to a small improvement in affordability and a rise in homebuyer sentiment, albeit from a record low. …
12th January 2023
There has been a further slight improvement in prospects for the euro-zone in recent weeks. Business surveys suggest that activity is no longer contracting sharply, headline inflation seems to be past its peak, and wholesale gas prices have plunged. …
10th January 2023
In less than two months, we should know who will replace Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda Haruhiko, whose term ends on 8 th April. Whoever replaces him will be under increasing pressure from the government to abandon Yield Curve Control (YCC), which has an …
9th January 2023
The 0.3% q/q contraction in Q3 left real GDP 0.8% below its Q4 2019 pre-virus level and the UK economy lagging even further behind its major counterparts. In contrast, GDP has risen above its pre-pandemic level in all G7 economies, including the US …
5th January 2023
It is three years since a cluster of cases of severe pneumonia started to draw attention in Wuhan. Chart 1 maps economic developments in China since then. The blue bars show cumulative growth since the end of 2019 and the black outlines show growth over …
4th January 2023
London house prices are likely to continue to underperform even if the shift in buyer demand away from the capital due to remote working ends. More stretched house prices in the capital prior to the jump in mortgage rates means the impact of higher …
3rd January 2023
A renewed pullback in global equity markets and rise in bond yields in December is set to cap off a historically poor year for returns from both “risky” and “safe” asset classes. In fact, once the surge in inflation in 2022 is accounted for, returns …
22nd December 2022
We think investors are still too optimistic on global growth, and that “risky” assets will struggle over the first half of 2023 as a result. Investors seem increasingly to have come around to our view on inflation over the past couple of months, namely …
Even though we expect the Bank of England to raise interest rates further from 3.50% now to a peak of 4.50%, we doubt the recent increase in gilt yields will be sustained. Instead, we think yields may fall from 3.60% currently to 2.75% by the end of 2023 …
21st December 2022
The November CPI report marked the second successive undershoot in inflation and there is mounting evidence that it will continue to fall sharply in 2023. (See Chart 1.) Core goods prices are coming under broad-based downward pressure, as easing supply …
The dollar has stabilised over the past month after its sharp fall in November, and we continue to think that a slowing global economy and worsening risk sentiment will lead to another (possibly final) leg up in the dollar over the first half of 2023. …
The renewed rise in the three-month annualised rates of CPI-trim and CPI-median inflation in November call into question the idea that the Bank of Canada has already finished its tightening cycle. Those rates are not published by either Stats Can or the …
Tightening cycles have been a key feature of 2022 across the emerging world, but the end is in sight as we enter 2023. Some EM central banks that began tightening early – for example Brazil, Chile and Czech Republic – have already brought an end to …
The slide in the price of oil since November has a little further to go in early 2023 and, while we think prices will recover later in the year, hydrocarbon revenues in the Gulf will be lower than this year. Even so, most of the Gulf economies will run …
According to RBA estimates, household interest payments jumped from 5.1% of disposable income in Q1 to 6.9% last quarter and we expect them to reach 12.5% by end-2023. (See Chart 1.) With household debt around record highs of 189% of disposable income, …
