We expect the aluminium market in the decade ahead to be characterised by stubbornly low prices, as economic growth in top consumer China eventually slows and begins to drag on demand. But as consumption in other emerging markets increases and the …
30th September 2020
The immediate costs of the COVID crisis will be shouldered more by governments than the private sector. However, as fiscal support recedes in the coming years, a greater share of the costs will be borne by households and firms, and ultimately by their …
Global supply chains have functioned well this year despite the disruption of social distancing and lockdowns, and people in many places appear more appreciative of migrants. But the pandemic is widening the rift between China and the rest of the world. …
22nd September 2020
The improvement in the labour market, lower borrowing costs and a turnaround in leading indicators all suggest that the housing downturn will soon come to an end. We now expect house prices across the eight capital cities to fall by just 3% from their …
If it is sustained for long enough, the policy stimulus being implemented in the euro-zone could eventually cause inflation to take off. However, we think it is more likely that policy is normalised as the crisis passes. The risk of an institutional slide …
17th September 2020
The macroeconomic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic are likely to be very different from those of previous pandemics, largely because of the unprecedented response by governments and central banks. The most important lesson from history is that …
16th September 2020
Japan’s incoming Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide has said he will “inherit Abenomics” and has been keen to emphasise that not much will change. As such, a major shift in economic policy is not on the cards. However, there are some apparent differences in …
15th September 2020
As we have argued in our Global Property Focus , we think that some of the increase in remote working seen this year will become a permanent feature of working practices in office-based sectors in the coming years. In Europe, we estimate that this will …
14th September 2020
For over a decade, we have tracked the performance of China’s economy independently from the official GDP figures using our China Activity Proxy (CAP). We are now introducing a revamped version of this popular indicator. In this Focus , we discuss why an …
10th September 2020
Although low inflation is likely to be the story over the next couple of years, the huge amount of policy stimulus could push up inflation further ahead. Central banks, in theory, have the tools to nip any rise in the bud. So the bigger risk is if there …
Even after the immediate threat of COVID has receded, we expect as many as 50% of office-based employees will work from home at least once a week. But the move away from cities and toward the suburbs should prove short-lived. Most of those leaving cities …
9th September 2020
The neutral interest rate has become one of the hot topics in Russian monetary policy over the past year and the downward revision to the central bank’s estimate of the neutral rate in July marks the first step in the shift towards a new normal of lower …
26th August 2020
In our view, the scale of energy demand destruction caused by the coronavirus pandemic has made the liberalisation of the global LNG market start to look inevitable . While pressure has been mounting on suppliers to offer more flexibility for some time, …
21st August 2020
A Joe Biden victory in November together with Democrats winning back control of the Senate could see a big increase in taxation and federal spending, together with a shakeup of healthcare, regulatory and trade policy. All of that could have a bearing on …
13th August 2020
The economic slump and the government’s fiscal response are driving a sharp rise in public debt in India. There is no immediate threat given low-interest rates and the likelihood that nominal GDP growth will rebound from next year. But in coming years …
Sweden’s contrary policy response to the pandemic reduced the depth of its economic slump at the expense of worse public health outcomes. But the data so far suggest that its experience stands out less than one might have expected, both in terms of …
12th August 2020
We think that the enforced remote-working experiment of recent months will cause a dramatic demand shift in the office sector, with as many as 50% of office-based employees working from home at least once a week. Even with a heroic supply response through …
6th August 2020
We do not expect the coronavirus crisis to undermine Japan’s long-term prospects. Capital accumulation will slow but there shouldn’t be a big impact on the supply of labour. And given that the response to the pandemic may end up lifting productivity, we …
23rd July 2020
Russia’s central bank has lowered its policy rate to a post-Soviet low during the current crisis and, with the economy likely to recover slowly and inflation set to remain subdued, further monetary easing lies in store. We expect the policy rate to be …
16th July 2020
The housing market outlook is improving. Government support and lender forbearance have dulled the impact of the virus on housing. Indeed, housing demand has bounced back more strongly than expected. Meanwhile, falling interest rates will support housing …
15th July 2020
Euro-zone unemployment now seems likely to peak at a lower rate and about a year later than we had previously forecast, mainly due to the widespread use of short-time working schemes. But the partial economic recovery means unemployment will fall back …
9th July 2020
It is by no means inevitable that the coronavirus crisis puts a big permanent hole in the supply capacity of economies (i.e. their ability to produce goods and services). With the right government policies, many economies should be able more or less to …
29th June 2020
As long as social distancing isn’t practised for many years, then those behavioural changes triggered specifically by the coronavirus crisis will probably prove temporary. But those changes that were already underway and which have been supercharged by …
23rd June 2020
Premature fiscal policy tightening is part of the reason why inflation did not gain much momentum after the BoJ launched large-scale quantitative easing in 2013. But the main reason why inflation has remained stubbornly low is that the huge expansion in …
The odds that Joe Biden wins this year’s US presidential election, and that the Democrats also win full control of Congress, have risen recently. While we expect US equities to fare reasonably well over the next few years regardless of the result of the …
22nd June 2020
The EU’s moves towards an unprecedented joint fiscal stimulus and the ECB’s commitment to buy unlimited amounts of government debt have greatly reduced the risk of a euro-zone debt crisis in the coming year or two. However, these measures are intended to …
15th June 2020
TARGET2 imbalances are set to rise to record levels over the year ahead on the back of the ECB’s planned wave of asset purchases. While this may be dismissed by some as a benign and technical side-effect of the ECB’s policies, it would indicate that, …
11th June 2020
The high-frequency data that we track suggest that while economic activity is picking up across most of the region, the pace of recovery varies significantly by country. We expect China, Singapore, Vietnam and Taiwan to bounce back quickest from the …
8th June 2020
Record low mortgage rates, plenty of spare time, the need for more space, increased savings and the anticipation of picking up a cut-price home all help explain the surprise recovery in mortgage applications for home purchase. But tighter credit …
4th June 2020
We expect the palladium market to remain in a deficit this year as both demand and supply plummet. Palladium supply should bounce back reasonably quickly, but the medium-term outlook for palladium demand from the auto sector is much harder to call. On …
The swift and significant response of the Bank of England to the coronavirus crisis has prevented a financial crisis, but we think the Bank will need to do much more than the markets currently expect to get the economy back on track. By this time next …
Australia’s gross government debt/GDP ratio will hit the highest level since WWII by 2022/23. While the budget deficit will narrow again over the coming years as tax revenues rebound and stimulus measures expire, it will remain consistent with rising debt …
1st June 2020
The fiscal plans unveiled by China’s leadership today are as expansive as those in 2009 but credit growth will remain far more constrained. The focus again is overwhelmingly on measures to boost investment, primarily infrastructure. We expect stimulus to …
22nd May 2020
Inflation is the not the easy fix for the coronavirus-related rise in public sector debt that it might seem. Not only might it not actually do much to reduce public sector debt ratios, but higher inflation would impose other serious costs on economies. …
20th May 2020
Public debt ratios are set to rise sharply in all euro-zone countries this year but in most cases they should then start to fall again. The exceptions are Greece and, more importantly, Italy where we expect the debt burden to keep rising and potentially …
Before the virus outbreak, falls in prime retail rents were expected to be concentrated in Northern European markets. Now rental falls are likely to spread throughout Southern and Central Eastern Europe as well. The impact of the virus outbreak is highly …
14th May 2020
The huge hit to Turkey’s balance of payments position from the coronavirus crisis and the evaporation of investors’ confidence in policymakers makes the risk of a currency crisis like that seen in 2018 increasingly likely. Worryingly, the banking system …
11th May 2020
India’s economy is all but certain to contract this year for the first time since 1979. And the government’s reluctance to respond to the coronavirus crisis as aggressively as those elsewhere means that the recovery will be slow too, as household and …
6th May 2020
The coronavirus will leave in its wake a sharp rise in public sector debt. Low interest rates suggest that many governments will be able to live with this, rather than having to resort to austerity, default or inflating the debt away. But they would still …
5th May 2020
Efforts to contain the coronavirus will cause Dubai’s economy to contract sharply, exacerbating overcapacity in key sectors and making it more difficult for the Emirate’s government-related entities (GREs) to service their large debts. Our own database …
20th April 2020
It is now crystal clear that virus containment measures will deal an unrivalled blow to metals demand. But the extent to which these same measures may also hit supply is up for debate. Despite all the headlines, there is currently little evidence of a …
16th April 2020
The effects of the coronavirus will push Argentina's economy into an even deeper recession and make the government more tempted to unilaterally halt payments on its international bonds. While we think that an amicably negotiated solution to Argentina's …
7th April 2020
This Focus examines the implications of deflation for asset returns. It is motivated by the recent collapse in market-based measures of US inflation compensation amid the spread of coronavirus, to their lowest levels since the Global Financial Crisis …
25th March 2020
Central banks are already facilitating fiscal packages in various ways. But with the fiscal costs of the coronavirus likely to rise much further, policymakers might consider explicitly financing them with a permanent expansion of central bank money – the …
24th March 2020
This Focus is a reference guide for clients of our new US Commercial Property service. It outlines the key pillars of our forecasting approach, updating previous methodological work from our established European and UK Property Services. Our five-year …
17th March 2020
