Filtered by Region: Europe Use setting Europe
The anti-dumping duties that the EU is likely to impose on Chinese imports in the coming months will have little macroeconomic impact. But more goods will be targeted in the next couple of years with significant implications for some sectors and …
30th April 2024
The Polish government’s white paper on Monday set out a scathing review of the previous government’s fiscal record and highlighted the challenges facing the public finances, but if we’ve learned anything from the report it is that the government will take …
The wide divergence in global office market performance to-date has been driven by significant differences in the return to office and the impact that has had on occupiers’ leasing decisions. US markets have been the major losers, while those in …
29th April 2024
The continued decline in core inflation will make it difficult for Norges Bank to stick to its current guidance that it will leave interest rates unchanged until Q4. We suspect that the Bank will change its forward guidance next week to acknowledge the …
26th April 2024
The latest RICS survey suggested that there was a further improvement in occupier and investment demand at the beginning of 2024. However, the big picture was one of a very weak market, reaffirming our view that rent growth will slow further and the …
25th April 2024
Foreign-born workers have been entirely responsible for the post-pandemic recovery in employment. But a gradual rise in labour market participation and a moderation in net migration may mean the share of UK-born employment starts to rise again. The risk …
Spanish house prices have risen 5% over the last two years despite rising interest rates. The relative affordability of houses in Spain is the main reason that the market remains strong, but the resilience of foreign demand for houses and a rising …
If sustained, the recent rises in market interest rate expectations and gilt yields may mean that the Chancellor has only around £5bn of fiscal headroom, down from £8.9bn in the March Budget, with which to fund further tax cuts before the next election. …
23rd April 2024
Prime office rent growth in Scandinavia is expected to moderate in the coming years as soft demand and rising supply push up vacancy. But having trailed the other Scandinavian cities in 2023, we think that tighter supply could help rent growth in Oslo …
This publication has been updated with additional analysis since the post-meeting press statement and press conference. MNB shifting down the monetary easing gears The communications accompanying the decision by the Hungarian central bank (MNB) to opt for …
New more granular MSCI data shows that the outperformance of residential property over the past decade was primarily down to student housing. Indeed, only in the past couple of years have multifamily returns exceeded that of all property. But with overall …
22nd April 2024
Movements in the exchange rate tend to have only a small impact on euro-zone inflation. So while the euro might weaken if monetary policy in the euro-zone and US were to diverge, we think it would take a big move in the exchange rate to have a significant …
19th April 2024
The continued weakness in the German economy that we expect over the rest of this decade presents a challenge to the export-orientated economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). While GDP growth is likely to be slower in CEE over the coming years than …
18th April 2024
We forecast that bond yields will fall back in most developed markets (DMs) over the next year or so, as central banks generally embark on bigger easing cycles than investors currently expect. But given our view that the Federal Reserve faces more hurdles …
We think it is most likely that future governments bring down Belgium’s budget deficit sufficiently to put its debt on a sustainable trajectory. However, the risks are that the deficit is higher than we forecast because of Belgium’s divided political …
17th April 2024
The detailed breakdown of March’s euro-zone HICP data, released this morning, show that the early timing of Easter boosted services inflation by 0.1ppts. This effect was smaller than in previous years. Nevertheless, excluding the tourism-related sectors …
As the plunge in employment in Q1 is probably a response to the recession last year, employment will probably soon rebound now that the economy is growing again. The real risk is a rebound in job vacancies prevents wage growth from falling as fast and as …
16th April 2024
The resilience of Swiss GDP over the past two years has been largely due to the merchanting sector, which buys and sells goods without them ever entering Switzerland. Excluding that sector, the economy was smaller at the end of 2023 than it was two years …
Our analysis shows that for CPI inflation to get stuck above 2.0% it would require oil prices and UK wholesale gas prices to rise to $110 per barrel and 150 pence per therm respectively. And for CPI inflation to return to 5.0%, it would require increases …
15th April 2024
Ben Bernanke didn’t pull any punches in his review of the Bank of England’s forecasting/communications and recommended a full revamp of the Bank’s main forecasting model, using alternative scenarios to express uncertainties rather than fan charts and …
12th April 2024
While inflation fell further across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in March, we think that the recent run of good CPI news is largely over. We expect inflation to rise back above central banks’ target ranges in Hungary and Poland by end-2024 (to near …
11th April 2024
The ECB’s decision to update its guidance suggests that an interest rate cut at the next meeting in June is very likely. Christine Lagarde would understandably not commit to a path of rate cuts, but we expect the Bank to reduce the deposit rate from 4% …
This week we held a Drop-In on the outlook for euro-zone commercial property. Clients can access a recording here . This Update provides answers to the most interesting questions that emerged from the discussion. Has inflation indexation helped boost …
The Bank of England’s Q1 Credit Conditions Survey provides further evidence that the drag on activity from high interest rates is starting to fade. Looser credit conditions will soon aid the economic recovery. The fall in mortgage rates at the start of …
Even if the US Federal Reserve leaves its policy rate unchanged for longer than we expect, our forecast that inflation in the UK will be lower than in the US suggests this won’t prevent the Bank of England from cutting rates from 5.25% to 5.00% in June …
After a period of relative calm, Italy’s fragile public finances are likely to come under the spotlight again before long. Budget deficits will be much higher than the latest government projections imply and Italy will probably face official EU procedures …
10th April 2024
The Q1 ECB Bank Lending Survey suggests that the drag on lending growth from tight monetary policy continued to ease. But the data remain consistent with broadly stagnant consumption and declines in investment. For the first time since late 2021, banks …
9th April 2024
The Bernanke review of the Bank of England’s forecasting and communications will probably recommend the Bank illustrates the risks around its forecasts using alternative scenarios rather than fan charts and places greater emphasis on supply and monetary …
8th April 2024
The further slump in housing starts in Q4 was a surprise, but timelier data and leading indicators suggest activity has since begun to recover. We are therefore happy with our forecast of a gradual recovery in new home supply over the next two years. (See …
5th April 2024
The CEE industrial market cooled in 2023 as economic activity stagnated. This year will herald an economic recovery but we don’t think it will be stop the rent growth slowdown. Demand is anticipated to rebound only tentatively and supply is still strong, …
4th April 2024
ECB officials have stressed that evidence of easing wage growth will be key in determining the timing of the first rate cut. Accordingly, this Update assesses which of the euro-zone’s numerous wage measures investors should keep their eyes on. The main …
3rd April 2024
The universal tariff which Donald Trump has proposed, along with other likely spillovers from his trade policies, may result in a hit to the euro-zone economy of up to half a percent of GDP. The damage would be bigger if this triggered a transatlantic or …
2nd April 2024
The strong showing for the opposition in Turkey’s local elections on Sunday highlights the extent of voter frustration with high inflation and we think that it should be interpreted as a positive for investors by strengthening policymakers’ commitment to …
February’s money and credit data suggest that the effect of tighter monetary policy has eased slightly. But the data are still very weak and we think that rate cuts later in the year will lead to only a gradual rebound. The narrow (M1) money supply …
28th March 2024
We expect the spreads between the yield of the 10-year German bund and its ‘riskier’ counterparts in other euro-zone economies to narrow only a little further this year. If anything, we think that the fiscal outlooks in France and Italy mean that the …
27th March 2024
Note: We will be discussing the outlook for European commercial real estate markets in a 20-minute online briefing at 10am BST on Wednesday 10th of April. (Register here .) After a solid 2023, we expect Paris prime office rental growth to slow markedly …
We think investors are underestimating the extent of rates cuts that the Riksbank will make this year. Policymakers are, rightly in our view, increasingly confident that inflation will soon return sustainably to the 2% target. Accordingly, we think they …
Data released today showed that Spanish inflation picked up from 2.9% in February to 3.2% in March. We think it is likely to increase further over the coming months due to base effects in energy inflation, higher VAT rates on energy and foods, and …
With the Bank of England striking a slightly more dovish tone whilst keeping interest rates at 5.25% and inflation likely to fall further and faster than the Bank expects, we still think a rate cut in June is possible and that rates will fall to 3.00% in …
21st March 2024
The SNB under Chairman Thomas Jordan has never shied away from making big calls, so it was fitting that it surprised markets with a 25bp rate cut today, to 1.5%, only three weeks after Mr Jordan announced he would leave his post in September. We expect …
We think the Riksbank will leave its policy rate unchanged at 4.0% next week but cut it by 25bp at the following meeting, in May. Beyond that, our forecast is for rates to come down much faster than the Riksbank’s own forecasts imply but broadly in line …
20th March 2024
Vladimir Putin secured a record victory in Russia’s presidential election over the weekend. The focus now will be on whether this emboldens Putin to devote more resources to the war effort, whether policymakers push through unpopular non-war fiscal …
18th March 2024
Inflation in Switzerland has surprised most other forecasters, including the SNB, this year by falling to just 1.2% in February, which was the ninth month in a row that it has been below 2%. We think this will encourage the SNB to reduce the policy rate …
14th March 2024
Inflation in Norway has fallen more quickly than Norges Bank expected, so at next week’s meeting it is likely to signal that it will cut interest rates sooner than it previously expected, perhaps in Q3. And we think there’s a good chance that it will make …
The revival of prime retail rental growth in 2023 ended a three-year rental decline for the sector. This likely marks the end of retail’s rental woes and we have nudged up our prime rent forecast for this year, but we doubt there will be a return to the …
The ECB’s new operational framework for implementing monetary policy, announced this afternoon, was largely in line with our expectations and has no immediate implications for monetary policy. But it does mean that the Bank will maintain a portfolio of …
13th March 2024
Improved valuations suggest that the price correction in prime property is almost done. However, with little scope for bond yields in continental Europe to fall from here and property-to-bond yield spreads still narrow compared to the recent past, we …
Turkey’s balance of payments figures for January showed that the current account deficit continued to narrow, but the drop in capital inflows in recent months is a concern and it appears that this forced the central bank to sell FX reserves. This adds to …
12th March 2024
We will be discussing whether the next government will move the dial on the economy in a 20-minute online briefing at 3pm GMT on Wednesday 13th March. (Register here .) We doubt the big rise in the minimum wage in April will prevent wage growth from …
11th March 2024
Given our view about monetary policy, we expect government bond yields in some developed markets such as the UK to fall markedly this year. In some other places, like the euro-zone, we doubt central banks will have much impact on yields. And we see scope …
7th March 2024
