Signs that the economy has turned a corner support our view that interest rates won’t be cut from 0.75% this year. After all, the activity PMIs are no longer in the territory where rates have been cut by 25 basis points before. (See Chart 1.) And they …
6th February 2020
Overview – Energy prices slumped in January owing to concerns about the hit to demand from the coronavirus outbreak. The evolution of the epidemic over the coming weeks will determine how lasting its impact will be on energy prices. For now, we are …
5th February 2020
The euro-zone economy ended 2019 on a weak note and the outlook for early 2020 remains gloomy. Euro-zone GDP slowed from 0.3% q/q in Q3 to 0.1% q/q in Q4, with contractions in French and Italian GDP. Although the euro-zone surveys for January point to a …
Overview – Commodity prices, and energy prices in particular, have been hard hit by the outbreak of coronavirus in China and the prospect of lower global commodities demand. There is still too much uncertainty to factor the virus into our forecasts. But …
4th February 2020
African central banks had a busy month in January. Policymakers in South Africa and Kenya surprised the markets (and us) by cutting their key rates by 25bp. We expect that both countries’ central banks will make one further cut, but that rising inflation …
31st January 2020
A combination of optimism about the prospect of a US-China trade deal and some better than expected economic data temporarily halted the decline in the Australian dollar towards the end of last year. Even so, the services balance surged into surplus in Q4 …
The decline in energy and metals prices caused by concerns about the coronavirus took a heavy toll on the region’s financial markets in the last few weeks. The Brazilian and Chilean currencies have been the worst performers in the emerging world this …
30th January 2020
The number of deaths inside China attributed to the new coronavirus is now on course to exceed those from SARS by early next week. The measures taken by the government and the public to limit transmission are having a significant economic impact. …
Before the coronavirus hit, the latest data suggested the region’s economies had turned a corner. Our regional GDP Tracker nudged up slightly at the end of last year, while GDP figures for Taiwan, Korea, Singapore and the Philippines (the only four …
We simply don’t know how far, or fast, the novel coronavirus outbreak will ultimately spread, so for the time being we are assuming that the response across asset classes will follow the same pattern observed during and after previous epidemics – that the …
29th January 2020
Fiscal plans announced across the Gulf over the past month suggest that governments will keep policy tight, a key reason why we think that economic growth will disappoint this year. The Saudi 2020 budget outlined that expenditure would be cut by nearly …
Regional GDP growth in Emerging Europe appears to have picked up from 2.2% y/y in Q3 to around 2.5% y/y in Q4. This was predominantly driven by a recovery in Turkey’s economy, where policymakers are pulling out all the stops to support activity. Russia …
Annual returns were just 2.1% in December, the lowest monthly figure since 2010. A marginal rise in yields in the retail sector caused all-property capital values to fall in December and was exacerbated by a slight fall in all-property rental values. (See …
Since the end of December, overnight index swaps have moved from pricing in no change in monetary policy over the next two years to implying 40 bp of loosening. (See Chart 1.) We had expected some move in that direction, as we thought that a further …
28th January 2020
There is no longer any doubt that China’s newly-identified coronavirus will hit its GDP growth in Q1 . And other parts of Asia (notably Hong Kong and Thailand) will suffer a drop in Chinese tourism receipts (see Chart 1), which could shave 1.5-2.0%-pts …
27th January 2020
The Fed’s interest rate cuts, a truce in the trade war, and a more positive global backdrop have all set the stage for an acceleration in economic growth this year. We calculate that GDP growth was a modest 2.0% annualised in the fourth quarter, as a …
21st January 2020
2019 was truly an annus horribilis for India’s economy but there are green shoots of a recovery in the data from the very end of the year. Industrial production growth jumped in November. (See Chart 1.) Meanwhile, growth in new passenger vehicle sales is …
20th January 2020
The Monetary Policy Committee’s decision on whether to cut rates in January rests on a knife edge and could go either way. The MPC must weigh up the weakness of the economy and low inflation in Q4 with the prospect that the election result, a Brexit …
16th January 2020
The fall in long-term bank lending rates in November will reinforce the concerns of some BoJ Board members that ultra-loose monetary policy is harming the profitability of private banks. November’s drop in long-term lending rates was the sharpest since …
The decision by the SNB to scrap its currency ceiling five years ago coincided with it slashing interest rates to a record low to reduce the attractiveness of holding Swiss francs. Alas, this ‘deterrence effect’ is not what it used to be: whereas the gap …
Our estimates of Q4 GDP based on national monthly data and surveys imply that global growth slowed from 3.1% to about 2.6% in quarter-on-quarter annualised terms. But we suspect that this will prove to be the low point before a gradual recovery begins. …
14th January 2020
Summary: The 30-year mortgage rate ended 2019 at close to 4%, and it is set to stay at around that level over the next or so. But tighter credit conditions will offset some of the benefit of lower rates on housing demand, and existing home sales will be …
December was a relatively strong month for both precious and industrial metals, with prices rising almost across the board. A weaker US dollar and safe-haven buying buoyed gold prices, while base metals prices benefitted from signs that industrial …
9th January 2020
Overview – The easing of US-China trade tensions and the escalation of US-Iran geopolitical tensions has caused oil prices to surge in recent weeks. In contrast, the prices of natural gas and coal have slumped owing in part to ample supply of natural gas. …
Hopes that the euro-zone economy will gather pace in the coming months are likely to be dashed. The latest business surveys point to growth stabilising but not recovering in the final quarter of last year. The slowdown over the past two years has been …
Overview – The prospect of a ‘Phase One’ trade deal between the US and China buoyed commodity prices in December. Although we expect trade tensions to remain elevated, we think that most commodity prices will rise in the year ahead as fears of a global …
6th January 2020
November’s 71,000 slump in the Labour Force Survey (LFS) measure of employment almost certainly overstates the weakness of the labour market. While we do not yet have the November data for the more reliable Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (SEPH), …
23rd December 2019
The marginal increase in rental values in November was not enough to prevent capital values from falling on an annual basis. Indeed, the impact of rising yields, particularly in the retail sector, caused all-property capital values to fall by 2.9% y/y. …
20th December 2019
Downward price pressures in London have eased, driven by a slump in homes coming up for sale. But with house prices high and mortgage interest rates close to their floor, that is unlikely to drive a recovery in prices soon. Rather, we expect a 1% fall in …
The last round of economic data released in 2019 pointed to a mixed performance in Latin America. Growth seems to have remained robust in Colombia in Q4 – and to have strengthened in Brazil – but activity faltered elsewhere. For the region as a whole, …
19th December 2019
GDP growth appears to have slowed slightly, to between 1.5% and 2.0% annualised in the fourth quarter, but the more stable global backdrop and the lagged impact of this year’s loosening in financial conditions should drive a gradual recovery from mid-2020 …
Annual GDP growth in Australia has probably bottomed out already but we expect growth to remain below potential in 2020. As such, jobs growth will probably not be strong enough to absorb the expansion in the labour force and we expect Australia’s …
The final round of South African data released this year supported our view that the economy faltered in recent months. Output fell by 0.6% q/q saar in Q3, and the latest figures suggest that the economy may have entered another technical recession in Q4. …
18th December 2019
China’s apparent reluctance to commit to the extra $200bn of US imports relative to 2017 levels that the US is requesting over the next two years as part of the Phase One deal is understandable: achieving the target would require imports from the US to …
The citizen amendment bill – which aims to fast-track citizenship for non-Muslims from neighbouring Muslim-majority countries – has dominated the news over the past couple of weeks. This isn’t primarily an economic or financial issue, but there are …
Political developments across Algeria, Tunisia and Lebanon threaten to exacerbate already-poor balance of payments positions. Presidential elections that took place in Algeria last week don’t appear to have appeased protestors, who are no doubt …
17th December 2019
Policymakers in Russia and Turkey have loosened monetary policy more than elsewhere in the emerging world over the past few months, but we think that easing cycles are nearing an end. Communications from Russia’s central bank suggest that, after one more …
Economic growth across the emerging world has slumped this year but, with the important exception of China, recoveries should take hold in 2020. Recent interest rate cuts will keep financial conditions accommodative. And governments will continue to …
The post-election jump in UK equities could just be the start of a sustained rally. Concerns Brexit and higher taxes under a Labour government mean that UK equity indices have underperformed over the last few years. (See Chart 1.) However, the removal of …
Singapore’s economy appears to be benefitting from tourists and business travellers shunning Hong Kong. Since the Hong Kong protests intensified in July, tourist arrivals to Singapore have picked up. Meanwhile, hotel occupancy rates have jumped and were …
Despite recent optimism about trade and Brexit, we doubt that equities in developed markets (DMs) will fare as well next year as they have in 2019. That said, those in the UK will be an exception in our view. Two key factors have boosted equities across …
What a difference a few months make; from being the worst performing G10 currency by some margin between the start of the year and late October, the Swedish krona has risen by about 3% against the euro since the Riksbank hinted that it would “most …
16th December 2019
Optimism about an imminent resolution to the trade war between the US and China and subsiding protests in Latin America have supported EM currencies over the past month. But, barring a few exceptions, we think that they will weaken against the US dollar …
11th December 2019
The available data on retail sales, household spending as well as the Bank of Japan’s consumption activity index show that consumer spending fell broadly as much in October as in April 2014, when the sales tax was raised from 5% to 8%. Even so, our …
Hopes that the euro-zone is turning a corner look premature. The latest activity data have been disappointing, with retail sales falling in October and national data pointing to another decline in industrial output. Business surveys paint a bleak picture …
10th December 2019
Overview – Warmer-than-expected weather, amid subdued global economic growth, put downward pressure on the prices of coal and LNG since the start of November. In contrast, the price of oil rose on the back of the agreement that OPEC+ will cut output …
9th December 2019
Housing market activity and house price growth showed few signs of improvement at the end of 2019. Indeed, activity has, if anything, been cooling. (See Chart 1.) That partly reflects economic and political uncertainty. But the big picture is that high …
Summary: A narrowing in the spread against the 10-year Treasury yield kept the 30-year mortgage rate close to 4% even as yields reached a three-month high in early November. Mortgage rates are likely to stay close to 4% over the next couple of years. But …
Now that all major economies have released their Q3 national accounts, it is clear that the world economy pulled off a third consecutive quarter of around 3% annualised growth. (See Chart 1.) And over the past six weeks or so, there has been mounting …
6th December 2019
Despite somewhat more encouraging economic data releases, industrial metals prices struggled to find direction in November mainly owing to the ongoing uncertainty surrounding US-China trade negotiations. We think most base metal prices will rise next year …
5th December 2019
