Filtered by Region: G10 Use setting G10
This Update was originally published on 19 th April. We have updated the data, charts and text to reflect the growing divergence between inflation in the UK and elsewhere evident after today’s release of the UK inflation figures for May. Clients can read …
19th April 2023
We think investors’ expectations for the Fed funds rate will fall a little by the end of this year, which will push the 10-year Treasury yield a bit lower by end-2023. But we doubt lower “risk-free” rates would be enough to prevent a sharp drop in the S&P …
While US equity REITs are a long way from discounting the “best of times” for US commercial real estate (CRE) over the coming quarters, listed real estate stocks in Europe appear braced for something not far off the “worst of times”. That is a difference …
17th April 2023
Recent events have highlighted that meeting regulatory capital and liquidity requirements does not guarantee that banks will be financially stable. The forthcoming EU bank stress test results should give a better idea of the banks’ health, but those tests …
Shift towards cheaper homes challenges statisticians The divergence between the Nationwide and Halifax House Price Indices (HPIs) of late has cast some doubt on the direction of house prices. A struggle to adjust the statistics for a shift towards cheaper …
The fading effects of the mini-budget meant that bank lending conditions to households and businesses didn’t deteriorate any further in Q1. But the latest credit conditions survey doesn’t capture the full extent of the tightening triggered by recent …
13th April 2023
Despite the cost-of-living crisis, the leisure sector did better than expected last year as households used the savings they had built up during the pandemic to boost spending on recreation and restaurants. But with those savings now exhausted and real …
The Bank of Canada delivered a mixed message today, noting that it is more confident inflation will decline in the next few months, but less confident that inflation will fall all the way to 2.0% as quickly as previously anticipated. Nonetheless, with the …
12th April 2023
We anticipate that the S&P 500 will fall back later in 2023, largely because analysts are far from pricing in a recession in the US that we think is even more likely after the recent banking turmoil. Our forecast is that the index will reach a trough of …
6th April 2023
Models suggest recession coming soon Our composite models suggest the economy was on track to fall into recession soon even before the impact of the banking turmoil feeds through. There also appears to be a lower, but rising, chance that a recession has …
5th April 2023
London office capital values fell by a relatively modest amount in the second half of last year and monthly data show values stabilised in the first two months of 2023. But that has left London office spreads very narrow at a time when the recent banking …
The decision by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to lift its official cash rate by 50bp, to 5.25%, came as an upside surprise, but we still think the end of the hiking cycle is approaching. In any case, the Bank’s aggressive tightening confirms our view …
The sharp fall in job openings in February shows that labour demand was cooling even before the recent banking turmoil and provides another reason to think that the Fed’s tightening cycle is nearly over. The fall in vacancies and downward revision to …
4th April 2023
Narrow money growth has turned negative as savers have shifted out of bank deposits and into money market funds and bonds, which now offer significantly higher returns. (See Chart 1.) Bank loan growth remains robust but, with the tightening in credit …
The Reserve Bank of Australia kept open the possibility of further tightening when it decided to leave its cash rate unchanged at 3.60% today. As such, we do still expect the RBA to deliver one final 25bp rate hike in May before bringing its tightening …
The latest mortgage market data show that the banking crisis has, so far, had a minimal impact on the housing market. While spreads have increased, overall mortgage rates have dropped and applications for home purchase have increased since SVB collapsed. …
30th March 2023
While households and businesses took further advantage of rising interest rates in February by moving money into bank accounts with higher rates, they are not withdrawing money from the overall banking system. We doubt this significantly changed after the …
Japanese banks have nearly doubled their lending to overseas non-bank financial intermediaries over the past decade. Some of this reflects purchases of collateralised loan obligations, most of which are highly-rated. But the bulk of that lending is very …
The 2023 Budget projects a much larger deficit than the prior Fall Economic Statement and, as a result, the government now agrees with our forecast that the debt-to-GDP ratio will rise. Roughly half of the hit to the budget projection is due to weaker …
28th March 2023
The surge in credit card spending over the past year hasn’t been any larger than the increase in overall consumer spending. And with personal credit accounting for a small share of overall credit, a surge in business loan defaults would pose a far greater …
27th March 2023
Fears over small regional banks in the US have focused on the unrealised losses on debt securities (see Chart 1 ) and deposit insurance but, in what would have echoes of the savings and loan crisis, maybe we should be more worried about deposit flight due …
24th March 2023
The flash PMIs for March suggest that not only did advanced economies avoid recession in Q1, but the outlook for activity has improved as well. However, we still think the hit from higher interest rates will intensify . And with services price pressures …
The ongoing struggles of the banking sector in the US and elsewhere has muddled the outlook for the dollar. But while we think the balance of probability has shifted against the greenback, we continue to expect a near-term rebound in the dollar, in …
Bank failures have had only a modest impact on UK banks’ wholesale funding costs to date, reflecting an assessment that lenders are in good health which we think seems fair. Greater investor scrutiny could still lead to more caution in mortgage lending, …
US regional banks’ higher exposure to CRE debt means we expect their struggles to weigh heavily on credit availability for commercial real estate investors. Even without building in second round effects on lending from other debt providers we expect this …
23rd March 2023
The Bank of England followed the Fed’s example by forging ahead today with a 25 basis point (bps) interest rate hike, taking rates from 4.00% to 4.25%. This could prove to be the last hike of the tightening cycle. But if wage growth and CPI services …
The 25bp rate hike and new projections unveiled by the Fed today were towards the more dovish end of potential outcomes. Despite recent strong economic data, officials acknowledged the likely hit from the banking sector turmoil and left their end-year …
22nd March 2023
Although recent strains in the banking sector mean that the economic outlook is especially uncertain, in our view equities are unlikely to perform particularly well, regardless of how things play out. It goes without saying that, over the past year or so, …
The UK commercial real estate (CRE) debt market seems to be in a better position than the US, where troubled regional banks were the main providers of finance. That said, credit conditions are also set to tighten in the UK which will make refinancing more …
With bond yields now dropping back again, the drag from unrealised losses on banks’ capital ratios should start to reverse. However, a sharp increase in losses on banks’ foreign loan portfolio has yet to materialise. While our view that major advanced …
21st March 2023
The ghosts of 2008 have made a sudden reappearance. Many metrics of core market functioning have worsened worryingly fast, but the overall situation is still long way short of the type of strains seen during the worst parts of the Global Financial …
16th March 2023
The direct impact on real estate of the collapse of two US regional banks over the weekend is likely to be relatively small. But we expect lending criteria to become more cautious in the short-term, which will weigh on the supply of real estate debt. …
Even as the economy has slowed nominal all-property rental growth has held up relatively well. But that largely reflects the impact of high inflation, which is now falling. In any event, underlying supply and demand conditions are ultimately the more …
15th March 2023
This year’s Shunto should result in the strongest negotiated pay hikes in decades. But the average Japanese employee will have little to rejoice in. Weaker corporate profits as well as a likely loosening of labour market conditions on account of a …
This checklist helps clients keep track of the key forecasts announced during the Spring Budget at 12.30pm (GMT) on Wednesday 15 th March. Our more detailed preview is here . We will send a Rapid Response shortly after the speech, we are hosting a “Drop …
14th March 2023
Australian banks are unlikely to experience the same valuation losses that resulted in the demise of Silicon Valley Bank. The biggest risk is that a freezing up of overseas bond markets shuts down funding avenues for the major banks, but the Reserve Bank …
Even if the collapse of several mid-tier banks doesn’t develop into a full-blown systemic crisis, it will more than likely trigger a credit crunch. That raises the risk that the economy will suffer a harder landing, which would accelerate the needed …
13th March 2023
The circumstances of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapse are unique enough that it probably won’t trigger a widespread financial contagion. Nevertheless, it is a timely reminder that when the Fed is singularly focused on squeezing inflation by jacking …
10th March 2023
Failed dockworker union negotiations on the West Coast have led to further diversion of US imports toward the East and Gulf Coasts, supporting warehousing demand in those markets for longer than expected. We expect a degree of this demand to persist into …
The Bank of Japan didn’t make any policy changes at Governor Kuroda’s last meeting today but we expect incoming Governor Ueda to abandon Yield Curve Control in April . While that decision was widely anticipated, we were among the few who predicted the …
The Fed is clearly trying to avoid a premature easing in financial conditions and a repeat of 1970s-style “stop-go” monetary policy. This Update discusses some lessons from that period for equity markets today. Equities have struggled over this week, …
9th March 2023
The US may not have a monarchy, but cash has arguably become its proverbial king of investments. If history is a guide, it is a reign that is likely to feature equities underperforming bonds amid a recession. Last November, the yield of a 3-month Treasury …
We expect industrial completions to exceed 3.5% of inventory this year, despite the first quarterly drop in space under construction in Q4 for over two years. But new starts are already slowing and with higher interest rates, elevated construction costs …
The numerous “plans for growth” that have been announced by the Government, the Opposition, and various commentators in recent months vary in their analytical rigour but all miss one crucial point: many of the reforms required to lift the UK’s pitifully …
The JOLTS survey showed a drop back in job openings in January, with the timelier job postings data from Indeed pointing to a more marked deterioration in labour market conditions in February. (See Chart 1.) The private job openings rate has …
8th March 2023
A record amount of industrial space is currently under construction, which looks poorly timed given the upcoming recession. However, the sector is entering the downturn in a strong position with very low vacancy. And we expect the share of online retail …
The Reserve Bank of Australia signalled that further tightening will be needed when it hiked the cash rate to 3.60% today and we’re sticking to our forecast that the Bank will lift the cash rate to 4.10% by May . The RBA’s decision to lift the cash rate …
7th March 2023
In this Update we examine the implications of affordability for house prices at the market level. Despite sunbelt markets seeing the strongest house price growth over the past couple of years, affordability looks most stretched in the West. This has been …
6th March 2023
Germany is more vulnerable than most advanced economies to a reduction in trade with China both because of the scale of trade and the use of Chinese-made inputs to its large manufacturing sector. We have highlighted in our Spotlight series that the …
With labour productivity falling the most on record over the past year, unit labour cost growth has surged even as hourly earnings growth has remained sluggish. While we expect productivity growth to rebound, we also expect hourly earnings growth to …