The annulment of left-wing former President Lula’s criminal convictions has significantly increased the likelihood of a looser fiscal stance, which could put Brazil’s public debt back onto an unsustainable path. The central bank is more likely to hike …
9th March 2021
A quick economic recovery, sustained fiscal support, and the housing-specific measures in the Budget mean it is likely that policymakers will successfully mitigate the adverse impact of the pandemic on the housing market. As a result, we now think that …
8th March 2021
China’s trade data for January-February show a clear deceleration in the growth of commodity imports. We expect this trend to persist over the course of this year as policy support is gradually withdrawn . China’s export growth surged to a 26-year high of …
We think the recent jump in bond yields will not continue and, though we think that they are unlikely to drop back to their previous lows, supportive valuations against bonds will limit upward pressure on commercial property yields. As seen in other …
The slow progress in rolling out vaccines in New Zealand means that its border may only be reopened by the end of this year. With net migration boosting population growth by around 1%-pt per annum before the virus struck, we’ve lowered our forecast for …
Although Democrats are close to securing passage of nearly all the $1.9trn originally requested by President Joe Biden in his American Rescue Plan, which is significantly more than the $1trn in additional money we had originally assumed would be coming …
6th March 2021
In the US, this week’s slide in equities in the face of a renewed rise in real government bond yields might seem puzzling, given the rosy prospects for the economy. But the argument that the stock market should be indifferent to rising TIPS yields if they …
5th March 2021
Greater availability, lower prices and proximity to NYC have supported demand for Boston apartments during the pandemic. That implies demand may edge back as the country reopens, and some workers return to NYC. Rental growth is therefore likely to …
The rise of government bond yields in the US and other developed markets (DMs) this year has made a significant impact on currency markets and, if it continues, would challenge our forecast for a weaker dollar. For most of last year, the primary driver of …
The reports delivered at today’s opening of the National People’s Congress (NPC) confirm that with the COVID-19 downturn now in the rear-view mirror the focus of China’s leadership has shifted away from shoring up near-term growth towards putting the …
Slower demand growth and an abundance of supply will limit gains in oil prices over the long term, which we think will ultimately prevent oil from featuring in the next commodity supercycle . As we recently outlined in a Commodities Watch , commodity …
4th March 2021
Our in-house demand proxies offer further evidence that industrial metals prices are running ahead of the underlying fundamentals. This helps to explain the sharp drop in industrial metals prices since the end of February and supports our view that they …
A few weeks ago, we nudged up our Treasury yield forecasts for year-end 2021 and 2022, to 1.5% and 1.75% respectively. While intra-day yields exceeded 1.6% at one point last week, we don’t expect a continuation of those rises this year. And the bigger …
We don’t expect the recent rise in US bond yields to turn into a rerun of the 2013 Taper Tantrum. But even if US real yields continued to grind higher, we think that EM assets and currencies would be better placed to cope than in 2013 . The recent …
The Saudi government’s efforts to improve the Kingdom’s business environment and attract foreign direct investment in recent years haven’t had the desired effect. One result is that the government is likely to lean heavily on the sovereign wealth fund, …
While Australia’s non-iron ore export volumes to China have slumped by 40% over the past year, coal miners have been able to divert their shipments to other countries. The upshot is that the conflict isn’t as damaging to Australia’s economy as many think. …
Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) left its main policy rate on hold at 1.75% today, and we have taken out the cut we had pencilled in for this year. However, with the economic recovery likely to be slow, policy is set to remain loose for a long time to come . 19 …
The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) left policy on hold today amid continued volatility in global financial markets. Given the poor outlook for the economy, the CBSL will want to resume its easing cycle soon, but that will only happen if pressure on the …
A fresh allocation of IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), if implemented, would provide a welcome boost to the depleted foreign exchange reserves of some distressed frontier economies. But an allocation wouldn’t address underlying dire debt dynamics, …
3rd March 2021
The Polish central bank’s latest forecasts, published this afternoon, tell a story in which the economic recovery will strengthen over the coming years and inflationary pressures will pick up strongly. But we think that policymakers will tolerate higher …
The prolonged reduction in Stamp Duty, a new mortgage guarantee scheme, and an extension to the furlough scheme should sustain high transactions volumes and prices throughout most of this year. There will still be challenges in Q4, when we expect the end …
Around half of the four million decline in the labour force over the past year reflects a wave of early retirements which is likely to be irreversible. The smaller 2.3 million drop in prime-age participation is almost entirely due to pandemic-related …
The reported (but unconfirmed) devaluation of one of Nigeria’s exchange rates would help to improve the public finances, but it would keep already strong price pressures elevated. We doubt that the latest tweak in Nigeria’s FX market will culminate in a …
This checklist helps clients keep track of the key economic and public finances forecasts announced during the Chancellor’s Budget speech at 12.30pm on Wednesday 3 rd March and to provide some instant context. We will send a Rapid Response and a Focus …
The 14 th Five-Year Plan should provide a revealing view of the key challenges that China’s leadership believes it faces. High among them is a more hostile global environment. In the economic sphere, this will be reflected in calls to raise …
The underwhelming vaccine rollout in Europe will probably delay the easing of restrictions and means that the best of the vaccine bounce will be pushed into Q3. That said, the planned EU-wide vaccine passport offers a lifeline for tourist-dependent …
2nd March 2021
President Biden’s ‘American Rescue Plan’ has been cited as one the key factors in the recent run-up in commodity prices. But even if it is passed in full, we think it will do little to boost commodity demand . The proposed $1.9trn fiscal stimulus in the …
If real yields continue to rise we could see the Fed shifting the composition of its monthly asset purchases to focus more on the long end of the curve, but we doubt that it would be willing to adopt an explicit yield control target, particularly not as …
The full breakdown of Q4 GDP data for Central Europe showed that net trade exerted a drag on growth in Poland while it provided a boost to Czechia and Hungary. But looking ahead, mounting headwinds to the recovery mean that we now expect GDP to grow only …
The growing strains in Brazil’s health system caused by the latest COVID-19 outbreak are likely to result in a further tightening of containment measures in the coming days, hitting the economic recovery. Pressure for more fiscal support is likely to …
The outlook for Pakistan’s economy is improving. Low virus cases, an easing of restrictions and a jump in the most recent activity data are prompting us to revise up our growth forecast for this year. Pakistan has recorded a daily average of just 1,300 …
While it is still early days, the ingredients for a sustained pick-up in inflation over the next few years seem to be falling into place in the US. It is a different picture in other developed economies; indeed, we still think that medium-term inflation …
Recent rises in government bond yields do not change our view that office and industrial yields will edge down a bit further in the next year or two. In fact, we don’t expect broad-based upward pressure on property yields until after 2023. Following the …
The fiscal support that Japan’s government provided during the pandemic wasn’t as large as headline figures suggest. Accordingly, the withdrawal of stimulus will be a smaller headwind to the economy than most expect, which is one reason we believe that …
The Reserve Bank of Australia today doubled down on its commitment to keep monetary policy settings loose and we reiterate our view that it will expand its bond purchase program by another $100bn in June. The Bank kept its target for the cash rate and the …
February’s manufacturing PMIs released across the emerging world were the proverbial mixed bag but, taken together, generally point towards solid EM industrial production growth in the next month or two. There are signs under the hood of supply …
1st March 2021
February’s global manufacturing PMI survey painted a positive picture, implying that output growth has continued to accelerate outside China and that employment is picking up. Supply shortages are boosting input prices, especially in DMs, but this …
Saudi Arabia’s economic recovery has continued to be slow going as the tightening of COVID-19 restrictions has weighed on activity. The slow start to the vaccine rollout and the Kingdom’s voluntary oil output cuts this month and last will delay a …
In light of our latest long-term economic and financial market forecasts, we have revisited our views for commercial property performance over the next three decades. We think that average returns will be lower than in the recent past, but that property …
China’s February PMI data were more subdued but still suggest that economic activity remains elevated, and the data elsewhere in Asia point to persistent strength in commodities demand in the coming months . The official manufacturing PMI (released …
Record high lumber prices are leading to delays in housing starts, and as result the share of homes for sale that have not been started reached a record high in January. While that will constrain single-family starts in the short term, sales of homes that …
26th February 2021
Despite the rise in EM bond yields over the past week, EM financial conditions remain very loose. Most central banks are likely to look through the accompanying sell-off in currencies (indeed, some may welcome weaker exchange rates). But these moves do …
The recent increases in real bond yields leave them still at low levels, but ECB policymakers nonetheless seem uncomfortable. Their verbal interventions have had little impact so far, so we think that there is a good chance that they will increase their …
We doubt that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s new obligation to consider house prices will drastically change the outlook for monetary policy. But given that house price growth remains very strong, there is a risk that the Bank tightens policy earlier …
Given our latest forecast for oil prices, we now expect the Canadian dollar to rise further in 2021 than we previously thought, but to drop back a bit in 2022. Despite already rising more than 15% against the US dollar from the last year’s low, we think …
25th February 2021
Even if nominal government bond yields kept rising this year, we suspect that this would be driven by rising inflation compensation rather than real yields, in contrast with the past couple of weeks. Chart 1 breaks down the increases in 10-year government …
We doubt that Treasury yields will continue to climb rapidly. However, that would be another reason to expect the returns from US REITs to fall short of those from ordinary US equities over the next few years. US REITs appear to have so far largely …
