Deflation has reared its head again in China, underscoring the problem of persistent supply and demand imbalances. The limited extra support for consumption outlined at the National People’s Congress and in the new “Special Action Plan” for consumption …
18th March 2025
The sharp fall in Indonesia’s stock market today seems to reflect growing worries about the direction of fiscal policy and the state’s role in the economy under President Prabowo Subianto, which could weaken medium-term growth and raise the country risk …
Growth in Chile’s economy slowed to 0.4% q/q in Q4, but more timely monthly activity data suggest that the economy headed into 2025 with more momentum. This, combined with above-target inflation, means that the central bank is likely to stand pat at its …
While a notable shift in Canadian fiscal policy is likely regardless of who wins the upcoming election, we doubt this will move the needle for the loonie or Canadian government bonds, given that the outlook for Canadian financial markets depends more on …
Lingering fiscal risks in South Africa, alongside the challenging global backdrop, prompt us to expect a dim outlook for the country’s bonds, equities and the rand over the rest of this year. The negative reaction in markets to rumours that South Africa’s …
Canada’s housing market falls victim to trade war While unseasonably severe winter weather has undoubtedly played some role in the recent weakness of home sales, we suspect the sharp drop in house prices in February can also be blamed on the growing …
17th March 2025
On the face of it, the US administration’s focus on lower oil prices, even at the cost of industry “disruption,” bodes ill for US oil production. That said, our forecast for WTI to fall to $56pb by end-2026 is consistent with output flatlining rather than …
China’s government has launched a new “Special Action Plan” to support consumption. Talk of prioritising consumption is encouraging on paper. But the leadership has been talking about this since a Politburo meeting in July. The latest plan doesn’t include …
Peru’s economy grew strongly in 2024 but we think that a combination of domestic and external headwinds will cause growth to slow by more than most expect over the coming years. But it is still likely to outperform most other major Latin American …
Consumers not completely collapsing under the weight of policy uncertainty after all Although retail sales only edged up in February, the much larger rebound in control group sales – which feeds into the BEA’s consumption estimate – is something of a …
The prospects for Chinese equities still appear quite bright to us, and in fact we expect that they will keep outperforming those in India over the rest of this year. Chinese equities were a bit of a mixed bag today. China’s offshore equity market …
The US president’s approach to trade policy may be – putting it charitably – inconsistent, but Donald Trump has at least been consistent in how he views the US balance of payments. As far back as the late 1980s, Trump was publicly complaining about how …
While trade tensions create downside risks, we expect GDP growth to be around trend this year. And following another strong showing in this year’s spring wage negotiations, wage growth will remain high enough to keep inflation above the Bank of Japan’s 2% …
Recovery hits a speed bump China’s economy appears to have slowed last month, likely due to a pullback fiscal borrowing. We expect a renewed pick-up later this year as fiscal support ramps up again. But any near-term improvement is unlikely to be …
Group Chief Economist Neil Shearing discusses what the latest signals from the US economy say about recession risk. He talks about what the coming week’s retail sales data might say, and how they might swing the debate around a downturn. Neil also …
14th March 2025
The dollar has stabilised after its historic tumble last week, with the DXY index set to end broadly flat on the week. At the margin, the greenback was lifted by relatively hot CPI and PPI data this week, which we think point to a 0.35% rise in the core …
SA 2025 Budget: will a compromise be reached? South Africa’s budget was finally delivered this week, but without the DA’s support. There are enough reasons to think that a compromise within the GNU will eventually be brokered, but it will still need to …
Prime Minister Starmer’s announcements this week to abolish both NHS England and the Payment Systems Regulator are the government’s latest initiatives aimed at boosting productivity and, in turn, improving the UK’s medium-term economic prospects. It’s …
Will high inflation or weak growth win out? Brazil’s central bank is all but certain to follow through with a clearly-signalled 100bp hike in the Selic rate to 14.25% next week, so all attention will be on the statement: whether it includes forward …
Trump torments Tiff The Bank of Canada’s decision to lower its policy rate by a further 25bp, to 2.75%, at its meeting on Wednesday was largely expected given the growing downside risks to the economy from US tariffs. While the temporary carveout …
Tariffs drive divergence in metals price outlook The price premium for industrial metals in the US surged in anticipation of the 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum, which were implemented this week. For example, the Midwest premium for aluminum has jumped …
What Trump put? Investors had until recently been relatively sanguine about the economic and financial market risks posed by President Donald Trump’s more extreme policy inclinations. His cabinet lacks the establishment types that served as a check on …
Bond market investors don’t seem to believe that monetary policy will be eased any further in China. Two-year yields have risen from 1.0% to 1.5% since the start of the year, putting them into line with overnight rates. They are higher now than they were …
Ceasefire proposal met with resistance by Putin The US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine has been met with a mixed response in Russia, with President Putin saying that he “supports the idea” but that it needs “serious reworking”. The ceasefire …
Policy concerns weigh heavily on sentiment The plunge in the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index in March, paired with the surge in inflation expectations, indicates that consumers’ concerns about the impact of the Trump administration’s …
Strong start to the year not a sign of things to come The large rises in both manufacturing and wholesale sales volumes at the start of the year suggest that GDP may have done even better than the flash estimate of a 0.3% m/m rise in January, although …
Europe’s plans to increase its defence expenditure are still evolving but based on what we know so far, we estimate that it will rise by around 0.5% of GDP between 2024 and 2026 for the euro-zone as a whole, lifting GDP by 0.2-0.3% over two years. The …
Duterte arrest puts political instability in spotlight The arrest this week of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte by the International Criminal Court for his role in extra-judicial killings of over 6,000 suspected drug dealers has no direct …
Key risks: food prices, banks, tariffs This week we published our Q2 India Economic Outlook , which contains all of our latest analysis of India’s economy and financial markets (the forecasts and underlying data can also be viewed in our interactive India …
The yen shrugged off the results of Japan’s “Shunto” spring wage negotiations today, even though the unions’ demands for another year of strong wage growth were broadly agreed to by firms. That’s not too surprising: it’s been clear for some time that …
Broad credit growth picks up, but private demand still weak While bank loan growth continued to slow to record lows in February, that was more than offset by stronger growth in non-bank credit. Strong government bond issuance should continue to provide a …
Shunto results in largest pay hikes since 1991 Japan’s Trade Union Confederation (RENGO) today released the first round of results of this year’s spring wage negotiations (Shunto). Including seniority pay hikes, RENGO’s preliminary tally showed a 5.46% …
The 0.1% m/m fall in real GDP in January (consensus +0.1%, CE -0.2%) highlights the weakness of the economy before the full effects of the rise in business taxes and the uncertain global backdrop is felt. Only a small part of the fall in GDP in January …
There are good reasons for the BoJ to strip out only fresh food rather than all food from its preferred measure of core inflation. To be sure, the fact that inflation excluding all food and energy has fallen to just 1.6% underlines that price pressures …
Budget deficit not widening as much as feared Treasurer Jim Chalmers will hand down the 2025/26 Budget on 25 th March and he will be eager to share the good news that the budget deficit in 2024/25 will be smaller than the Treasury had predicted in the …
The surge in rental demand is over, but rental demand will probably remain stronger than pre-pandemic levels. That suggests the prop to rents growth in 2025 and 2026 from solid demand will fade only slowly. Fundamentally, changes in rental demand are …
13th March 2025
While today's US PPI print supports our view that the Fed will stand pat this year, comments from central bankers in Canada and Japan suggest they may have different views about how over how to respond to the impact of US tariffs on domestic inflation and …
We expect the SNB to cut its policy rate by 25bp next week to take it to 0.25% in response to the very low inflation rate early this year. But we think that will be the last cut of the cycle, as underlying price pressures have not been as weak as we …
Overview – Our new forecasts have been compiled in the most uncertain geoeconomic environment for a long time. But our firmly below-consensus expectations for US CRE are led by our view that nearly three years since the market peak, appraisals still do …
Consecutive interest rate cuts unlikely Vote may again make the MPC look more dovish than it really is Even so, rates may eventually be cut to 3.50% rather than to the low of 4.00% investors expect The Bank of England will almost certainly leave interest …
Egypt is now twelve months into its orthodox policy shift and, so far, the authorities have moved in the right direction towards restoring macro stability. But there is still work to do in the next phase of reforms that is needed to unlock stronger GDP …
The vote on Brazil’s 2025 budget (likely next week) will put renewed attention on whether the primary deficit will be kept low enough to comply with the government’s fiscal rules. But the key point is that Brazil’s weak public debt dynamics owe more to …
The strong inflation data so far this year supports our view that the Riksbank has already ended its loosening cycle and will keep its policy rate at 2.25% next week. And we expect the policy statement to focus much more on the upside risks to inflation …
CPI & PPI point to 0.35% m/m increase in core PCE While final demand and core PPI both surprised to the downside in February, the price increases in the components which matter for the PCE deflator were on the whole hotter than we had anticipated. As a …
