The government’s reform agenda struggled for momentum in 2022 as key state elections (notably in Uttar Pradesh in March and Gujarat in December) dominated the calendar, and surging food and fuel prices set a tricky political backdrop. But the results of …
20th December 2022
The past few weeks have brought mostly good news on the inflation front, with the headline rate dropping back in most countries in November. (See Chart 4.) Less encouragingly, however, core inflation has continued to rise and is now at multi-year highs …
While we had expected the rise in risk-free rates and upcoming recession to boost yields, the speed at which they have increased has been surprising. All-property equivalent yields rose by a total of 78bps in October and November, reversing all the …
The performance of African economies diverged early this year, but the latest data provide clearer signs that growth across the region is now slowing. Economic weakness seems most pronounced in Ghana, where the impact of the country’s sovereign debt …
The return of inflation for the first time in the inflation-targeting era has led to the biggest jump in Bank Rate and mortgage rates since the late 1980s. (See Chart 1.) The steady downward trend in mortgage rates from 6.5% in 2008 to 1.5% at the end …
19th December 2022
Central banks across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have left interest rates on hold over the past month or so but their communications have continued to strike a relatively hawkish tone. Hungary’s central bank has suggested that interest rates may be …
A fall in mortgage rates from 20-year highs supported the first rise in home purchase demand in eight months in November. Given that mortgage rates are likely to continue to trend lower from here, sales should soon bottom out. But the big picture is …
14th December 2022
Peru ’s newly-inaugurated President Boluarte’s call to bring forward the next general election to 2024 has failed to pacify protesters who took to the streets following the impeachment of President Castillo last week. The unrest is already causing …
Data over the past month have brought the clearest signs yet that inflation is starting to ease. Our estimate of world CPI inflation fell for the first time in 15 months in October, from 7.9% to 7.7%. Of course, that is still a very high rate, but there …
7th December 2022
Overview – We think slower global economic activity and a somewhat stronger US dollar will weigh on commodities prices in the coming months. However, the recession should prove relatively shallow and we expect prices to be picking up in late 2023, boosted …
5th December 2022
Although Chinese stocks have reversed a two year or so downward trend in the past month amid hopes that zero-COVID policies will end, we doubt this is a sign of things to come in the near term. Since its trough on 31 st October, the MSCI China Index has …
1st December 2022
Renewed optimism in global markets – in large part tied to hopes for a Fed “pivot” – pushed the US dollar down against most major currencies last month. But with a global recession on the horizon, we continue to think that the dollar rally will resume …
Third quarter data showed growing evidence of a softening in tenant demand in many metros. In particular, demand appears to be slowing in a number of West Coast markets, as hybrid and remote work becomes embedded in work patterns and the cost of real …
29th November 2022
Concrete signs of an effort to exit from zero-COVID are emerging, with a notice today of a push to vaccinate the elderly. The low level of vaccine coverage of the most vulnerable is, along with a lack of healthcare capacity, the major constraint on …
Most central banks across Sub-Saharan Africa raised interest rates over the past month and, in contrast to many other parts of the emerging world, we think tightening cycles will last a while longer. Interest rates were hiked in Nigeria, South Africa, …
Most countries in the region have now reported GDP figures for the third quarter, and growth was generally faster than we (and the consensus) had expected. One factor behind this resilience was the strength of private consumption, which held up well in …
Most developed market (DM) government bonds and equity benchmarks have rallied over the past month or so, but we doubt this twin rally will persist. While we think bond yields will end 2023 lower than they are now as inflationary pressures ease, we expect …
25th November 2022
The big surprise so far this year has been the resilience of housing starts which, despite falling from their 10-month high of 300,000 annualised in September, remained at a relatively strong 267,000 in October. While developers have largely shrugged …
24th November 2022
Growing domestic and external headwinds have taken a bigger toll on the region’s economies in recent months, with growth slowing sharply in Turkey and Israel in Q3 and GDP contracting outright in Czechia, Hungary and Latvia. Admittedly, there have been …
Having surged for the best part of two years, EM inflation appears to have passed the peak in this cycle. Our measure of aggregate EM inflation dropped from 7.8% y/y in September to 7.4% y/y in October. (See Chart 1.) Looking ahead, we think that …
23rd November 2022
Property yield rises stepped up in Q3, causing all-property capital values to fall on a quarterly basis in the CEE markets except for Bucharest. (See Chart 1.) This was despite solid office and industrial rental growth. Looking ahead, stretched …
Economies across North Africa have endured severe balance of payments strains this year and governments in Egypt and Tunisia finally secured staff-level agreements with the IMF over the past month. Markets have welcomed the news with sovereign dollar bond …
The sharp rise in Treasury yields this year has finally begun to feed through to the property data. Q3 investment activity fell by more than 20% on both a q/q and y/y basis, with loan originations also falling back notably. And valuers have begun to …
22nd November 2022
The resilience of consumer spending is keeping hopes of a soft landing alive. Although GDP growth looks to have slowed in the fourth quarter, and most leading indicators of recession are flashing red, solid retail sales and a jump in vehicle sales …
Prime property yields rose significantly in Q3. (See Chart 1.) This caused a sharp slowdown in capital value growth, even though rental growth was solid in the Scandinavian office and industrial sectors. Stockholm and the Swiss markets fared worst, with …
The RBI has hiked interest rates by 190bps since May and, while that is relatively benign compared to the moves seen in many other EMs, this tightening is now feeding through to the economy. Purchases of big ticket items such as passenger vehicles have …
21st November 2022
Headline inflation shot up to 3.7% y/y in October , the strongest since December 1990 while inflation excluding fresh food and energy rose from 1.8% to 2.5%. Although this puts inflation well above the Bank of Japan’s target, the case for tightening is …
Higher interest rates and a weaker outlook for economic activity led to a more significant rise in property yields in Q3. While quarterly rental rises remained solid, particularly for offices and industrial, this meant that all-property capital values …
18th November 2022
Data released over the past month or so suggest that most economies across the region fared well in Q3. GDP growth in Mexico and Colombia came in well above expectations and hard activity data from Brazil point to another solid expansion last quarter too. …
17th November 2022
Many of the Q3 GDP releases of early-reporting economies have beaten consensus expectations in the past few weeks, especially in Europe. Not only did energy-crisis-laden Germany grow in Q3, rather than contract as expected, but the economy managed to …
11th November 2022
While the risk premium that pushed gilt yields up and the pound down after the mini-budget has mostly been reversed under the stewardship of Sunak and Hunt, the fear that the markets will baulk at any fiscal indiscipline means that the Chancellor will …
10th November 2022
The latest activity indicators show that the economy contracted in October, and the forward-looking measures of new orders and expectations suggest that the downturn will get worse. We have pencilled in a contraction in GDP of 0.5% q/q for the fourth …
8th November 2022
With inflation surprising to the upside in Q3, the Reserve Bank of Australia was forced to revise up its near-term forecasts for inflation in its latest Statement on Monetary Policy. (See Chart 1.) What’s more, the Bank’s forecasts were based on the …
7th November 2022
On some measures China’s current COVID situation is about as bad as it has ever been. While far fewer infections are being found daily than at the peak of the Omicron wave, new cases are geographically spread just as wide, with the result that the …
1st November 2022
Central banks across the region have been stepping up the pace of intervention in foreign exchange markets to support their currencies, resulting in a drop in FX reserves. In most countries, reserves are down by around 10% from their recent peaks, and …
31st October 2022
The past month has brought further signs that economies across Sub-Saharan Africa are in the midst of a slowdown. The latest activity data out of South Africa suggest that, after GDP contracted in Q2, its economy fell into a technical recession in Q3. …
Current account deficits have widened to alarming levels in Poland, Hungary, Turkey and, most of all, Romania, in recent months which has contributed to the downward pressure on currencies this year – the Turkish lira, Hungarian forint and Polish zloty …
26th October 2022
OPEC+ cut its oil production quotas by 2mn bpd in November and strong compliance with the agreement will hit GDP growth in the Gulf economies harder than other members of the group. The result is that the region is now set to endure a sharper economic …
The reversal of Truss/Kwarteng’s fiscal policies and Rishi Sunak’s appointment as the UK’s new Prime Minister has ushered in a period of calm in UK financial markets after the recent storm. Indeed, much of the extra political risk premia on gilts that …
Brazilians head to the polls on Sunday to decide who’ll become the country’s next president in a heated run-off election between incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and his left-wing rival Lula. Lula is still the front runner, but the race is looking much tighter …
25th October 2022
The rebound in global oil prices over the past month has not been matched by those in Canada, with Western Canadian Select (WCS) instead trading closer to $60 per barrel, as the discount between WCS and the US WTI benchmark has widened to a …
While interest rates are unlikely to rise as high as investors expected in the immediate aftermath of the “mini budget”, those hoping that the surge in mortgage rates since will be reversed are likely to be disappointed. Admittedly, the peak in Bank …
21st October 2022
Total returns see worst month since Brexit vote The rise in interest rates and upcoming recession are leading to a rapid turnaround in commercial property performance. Rental growth is starting to ease, particularly in consumer-facing sectors such as …
EM tightening cycles have continued apace but, having started raising rates much earlier than their DM (and Asian) peers, some central banks in Latin America ( Brazil , Chile ) and Emerging Europe (Czech Republic, Poland) are drawing their hiking cycles …
19th October 2022
The continued strength of core inflation in September has sealed another 75bp rate hike from the Fed at the November FOMC meeting and raises the chances of that aggressive pace of tightening continuing in December too. Nevertheless, the more hawkish the …
The RBI continued frontloading policy tightening in its late-September meeting with another 50bp hike to the repo rate (to 5.90%) but communications since then suggest that some MPC members are ready to ease off the brakes. The minutes to that meeting …
With the yen currently trading just below 149, it now appears to be a question of when and not if policymakers step in again. But as recent weeks and the Asian Financial Crisis have shown, such interventions alone can’t reverse yen weakness. An even …
17th October 2022
A deterioration in the economic outlook and renewed rise in mortgage rates to a 16-year high in September means the housing market is set for a further slowdown. We estimate that mortgage payments as a share of median income rose to 26% in September. …
14th October 2022
The latest data suggest that the labour market strength, which has been a key feature of advanced economies this year, might be coming to an end. Admittedly, unemployment rates have generally been stable at very low levels. However, falling job vacancy …
A recession has looked unavoidable for some time and we now think it will be deeper than most anticipate. Manufacturing output is already declining and services activity is slowing. What’s more, inflation is in double-digit territory and does not seem …
6th October 2022
