Disruption from China’s reopening is fading faster than we had expected and we have revised up our forecast for growth there from 2.0% to 5.5%. This means that global GDP growth will be stronger than we had expected this year and energy inflation will …
12th January 2023
Europe’s energy crisis, sky-high rates of inflation and Ukraine’s reconstruction were among the biggest topics of conversation at Euromoney’s Central and Eastern European (CEE) forum in Vienna this week. There seems to be a widespread view now that …
In the first instalment of our Election Watch series ahead of the late-February polls in Nigeria, we assess the economic policies proposed by key candidates. The elections offer a chance to depart from unorthodox policymaking under the outgoing …
We had expected disruption from China’s reopening wave of COVID infections to weigh heavily on activity well into Q1. But there is mounting evidence that much of China’s population has already been infected and that disruption is already fading rapidly. …
Our updated remote worker metro ranking shows some important changes since the end of the pandemic, though the winners remain in the South. Nashville tops the table, having climbed seven places. Tucson and Memphis also climb into the top 10, with …
11th January 2023
November’s money and credit data showed that the effects of tighter ECB policy were only just starting to be felt. So while some of the recent economic data have been a bit stronger than expected, the drag from tighter monetary policy is set to …
Foreign capital inflows into EMs have picked up a little since the beginning of the year. This should provide some relief to those countries with sizeable current account deficits, including Chile, Colombia, Philippines, and several countries in Central …
The sharp fall in the Egyptian pound today means that, in real trade-weighted terms, it is at its lowest level since the 2016 devaluation. The experience from that period is that the boost to Egypt’s external competitiveness will lead to a sharp narrowing …
Real estate equity prices pointed to around a 10% fall in euro-zone all-property capital values in 2022 and we expect a similar size fall this year. But while the latest REIT data show landlords were in a better financial position than before the GFC, the …
Reform of the French pension system is notoriously difficult and it is possible that the proposals unveiled yesterday will be watered down or even withdrawn completely. However, on balance, we think there are more reasons for cautious optimism that they …
The activity and labour market data imply the economy carried more momentum into 2023 than we expected, but the weakness of temporary employment suggests cracks are showing beneath the surface. The revised preliminary estimate that GDP edged up by 0.1% …
10th January 2023
In this Update , we take a look at the key elections that are scheduled across the emerging world this year. The most notable ones are in Argentina, Nigeria and Turkey, where opposition victories could be the catalyst for a shift away from the …
After a stellar first six months, rising interest rates and a slowing economy brought commercial property returns crashing down in the second half of 2022. All-property total returns are therefore set for their worst year since 2008. And 2023 will not be …
While the shift towards higher taxes and spending after the pandemic appears to be here to stay, there is little to suggest an expanded state would curtail GDP growth. But without supply-side reforms aimed at solving the UK’s fundamental problems of low …
The apparent resilience of employment in December has boosted hopes that the US can avoid a recession, but we still think that is unlikely. Employment is a coincident indicator whereas the only genuine leading indicators in the employment report – …
9th January 2023
A large part of the real estate sector’s carbon footprint is related to electricity production and so will shrink over time as the use of renewables continues to expand. The biggest challenges to reducing property sector emissions will be in emerging …
The implications of the invasion of Brazil’s congress by protestors yesterday are mainly political. But the riots could result in a long-lasting risk premium on the country’s financial assets, particularly if they prompt President Lula to double down on …
Mortgage rates have probably now peaked, but they remain at a level that makes further steep falls in house prices and a slump in housing market activity inevitable this year. If anything, the hard data show that the housing market slump has already begun …
The shift toward living with COVID will put some upward pressure on prices in China. But the uptick in inflation will not be as large as that seen in many other countries as they emerged from COVID controls over the past couple of years. While the initial …
Our key calls for 2023 highlight major shifts in the outlook for real estate. We expect all-property total returns to be negative for the first time since 2009. At a sector level, we expect retail to do best, ending industrial’s decade of dominance, while …
6th January 2023
Although valuation premia in certain parts of the US stock market shrank significantly last year, we think there is still some room for this to continue in the coming decade and weigh on their relative performance. To re-cap, there was a marked reversal …
While we expect mortgage rates will fall to 5.75% by end-2023, affordability will remain stretched. Alongside a weakening economy and falling house prices that will weigh on housing market activity. Indeed, we think 2023 will be the worst year for sales …
While we think the hawkish ECB poses a near-term threat to euro-zone government bonds, we still expect their yields to be lower, in general, by the end of this year . Having climbed throughout December, developed market government bond yields have …
The property repricing in response to higher interest rates has not yet run its course. Coupled with a recession-driven slowdown in rent growth, this means 2023 is shaping up to be another bleak year for European real estate. Given the rapid rise in …
The recent plunge in wholesale gas prices means that utility prices for households may fall below the government’s price freeze in July. As a result, CPI inflation will be around 0.3 percentage points (ppts) lower than we previously thought in the second …
European natural gas prices have halved over the past month as usage stayed low and LNG imports hit record highs. Barring dramatically colder weather, EU gas storage looks set to be in a more comfortable position than we had expected. As a result, we have …
Downward pressure on the Hong Kong dollar has abated in recent weeks and we think it is very unlikely that the existing currency framework will be abandoned any time soon. For much of 2022, the USD/HKD rate traded at the upper end of the band defined by …
Strong rental growth and higher mortgage costs will keep shelter inflation elevated for the next few months, but we expect it to fall sharply over the rest of 2023 as lower house prices feed through. Shelter inflation surprised to the upside of our …
5th January 2023
We have revised our European wholesale gas price forecast down and, as a result, now expect euro-zone inflation to fall more rapidly than we had previously anticipated. In turn, this means that real incomes and economic activity might be slightly …
Models point to recession soon Our composite models continue to suggest that a recession this year is a near-certainty, with the implied odds of the economy being in recession in six months’ time and in one year’s time both above 90% as of December. …
The latest MSCI data show that prime property values underperformed the wider market last year. But with the rest of the market more vulnerable to the economic recession and as MSCI values catch up, relative performance is likely to shift in 2023. The …
While our forecast that the economy would slow in 2022 on the back of high inflation and Fed policy tightening was right, like every other forecaster we were surprised by its extent. This threw off our call for further property yield falls in 2022. But we …
4th January 2023
The latest JOLTS data suggest that labour market conditions remain quite tight and a lot more adjustment is needed to ensure that the drop back in price inflation to 2% will be sustained. While the job openings rate was unchanged at 6.4% in November, …
China’s abandonment of its zero-COVID policy could lead to supply chain disruption in other EMs, particularly other parts of Asia and Mexico, though we’re not too concerned yet. And outbound Chinese tourism is likely to soar, to the benefit of Hong Kong …
The sharp fall in the Egyptian pound today, coming in the wake of last week’s move to ease FX restrictions, suggests that the authorities are starting to make good on their pledge to shift to a more flexible exchange rate regime. There are already signs …
The nomination of a less dovish candidate to succeed BoJ Governor Kuroda would probably signal that Yield Curve Control will soon be abandoned, though we would still expect the Bank to keep its short-term policy rate at -0.1%. This would result in a …
Developments of the past two weeks reinforce the message that the world economy is headed for recession and disinflation in 2023. With the full effects of policy tightening yet to be felt, and re-opening disruption to China’s economy set to linger, things …
Although the manufacturing PMIs for December picked up in some highly-open EMs in Asia and Central Europe, industry in these countries remains very weak. And the surveys suggest that activity has softened further in major EMs including China (due to …
3rd January 2023
India’s current account deficit is likely to have widened to 3% of GDP in 2022, the largest in a decade. We expect the deficit to narrow slightly in 2023 as commodity prices ease and domestic demand comes off the boil. While this still leaves the rupee …
The December survey data out of China were uniformly downbeat. The plunge in the official services PMI points to a fall in oil demand, but we suspect that the hit to industrial activity (and metals demand) has been more modest. Looking ahead, we expect …
Demand growth for industrial metals slowed in October and almost certainly weakened further last month. We expect demand growth to remain sluggish, or even contract, in the first half of 2023 as the global economy slides into recession, whereas investors …
23rd December 2022
Unusually, investors have been reducing their net-long position in the oil futures market, but increasing their position in industrial metals. We suspect this reflects optimism about China reopening at a time when the global economy is entering …
22nd December 2022
Although prime property in Turkey saw strong rental gains in 2022, a slowing economy looks set to weigh on occupier demand and cause rent growth to decelerate next year. Meanwhile, the risk of a sharper depreciation of the lira risks pricing out local …
Bank Indonesia (BI) today raised interest rates for a fifth consecutive meeting, but slowed the pace of tightening with a 25bp hike (to 5.50%). With inflation still well above target, the central bank has more work to do. But provided the currency …
We expect lower global risk appetite, as well as rising country-specific risk premia in some cases, to put upward pressure on the yields of 10-year local-currency (LC) government bonds in emerging markets (EM) in the first half of 2023. But later in the …
21st December 2022
The impending recession will hit jobs growth across the office-based sector. But the impact on office demand is likely to be greatest in markets that have a large exposure to the tech sector. This reflects that the recent pace of tech jobs growth looks …
The jump in bond yields and the further strengthening of the yen following the widening of the Bank of Japan’s tolerance band for 10-year JGB yields will lower the value of assets owned by Japanese investors. Insurance firms will be most affected by …
The surge in government bond yields around the world in response to today’s decision by the Bank of Japan (BoJ) to tweak its policy of Yield Curve Control (YCC) highlights the risks to international markets posed by the country’s huge investment overseas. …
20th December 2022
The EU’s new policy to limit gas prices is unlikely to be activated next year. And with so many caveats built in, it seems the only thing countries agreed on was that a cap was indeed needed to show unity. We are sceptical that the EU’s mechanism to cap …
The Bank of Japan’s unexpected decision to alter its yield curve control (YCC) policy has led to a surge in the yen today; we now expect the USD/JPY rate to drop further, reaching 125 by end-2023. The yen has jumped by ~3% against other major currencies, …
