Asia Economics Weekly Indonesia's upgrade highlights improved outlook In a good week for Indonesia, Fitch upgraded the country’s long-term sovereign debt rating to investment grade on Thursday and parliament passed a long-awaited land acquisition bill on Friday. Both... 19th December 2011 · 1 min read
Canada Economics Weekly Declining household net worth raises red flags For the past decade households have been on a debt-financed consumption and housing investment spree, reinforced recently by historically low interest rates. This trend has been accompanied by rising... 19th December 2011 · 1 min read
UK Economics Weekly UK unlikely to be first in line for a downgrade Diplomatic relations between the UK and Europe worsened again last week following suggestions by French officials that the ratings agencies should be turning their attention to the UK rather than... 19th December 2011 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly Banks unlikely to ride to their governments’ rescue A closer look at the euro-zone policymakers’ new plan to “save the euro” has not altered our view that it will not bring the debt crisis to an end, especially since several key components of the deal... 19th December 2011 · 1 min read
US Economics Weekly Is the saving rate higher than it looks? We are not convinced by suggestions that, due to either income being under recorded or based on alternative ways of measuring savings, the true household saving rate is much higher than the published... 19th December 2011 · 1 min read
Japan Economics Weekly Growth to disappoint in 2012 The headwinds facing the Japanese economy are more likely to grow than abate, prompting us to revise down our GDP forecasts out to 2014. A sharp slowdown in the global economy is likely to leave... 19th December 2011 · 1 min read
US Data Response Consumer Prices (Nov.) Consumer prices were unchanged in November, held down by a drop back in gasoline and motor vehicle prices. The annual rate of CPI inflation fell only marginally to a still elevated 3.4%, from 3.5%... 16th December 2011 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Update India prepares ground for rate cuts as economy slows Although it left its repo rate unchanged at today’s meeting, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) signalled that it is preparing the ground to loosen policy earlier than previously expected. We now think... 16th December 2011 · 1 min read
Asia Chart Pack Exports weaken amid global slowdown Exports from the region have been weak due to lower demand from the West. However, domestic demand has so far remained fairly resilient across the region. Central banks in Australia and Thailand have... 15th December 2011 · 1 min read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Update Egypt’s GDP recovers but challenging times ahead Today’s reports that Egypt’s GDP grew by 0.5% y/y in the third quarter suggest that the economy has now recovered most of the initial losses in output brought about by the social unrest. However... 15th December 2011 · 1 min read
Commodities Update Are falling copper stocks a reason to be bullish? Declining stocks on global metal exchanges are often given as a reason to expect prices to rise. However, we are sceptical that the recent decline in reported copper stocks is due to strong end user... 15th December 2011 · 1 min read
US Data Response IP/PPI (Nov), Emp St/Phil Fed (Dec), Cur Ac (Q3) The 0.2% m/m decline in industrial production in November is a bit worse than the 0.1% m/m fall we were expecting, but it looks like the floods in Thailand had more of an impact than we had... 15th December 2011 · 1 min read
Europe Commercial Property Update Are we too optimistic about the outlook for Swiss industrial rents? Switzerland does not seem to be awash with vacant industrial property, so the risks of a slump in rental values in this sector over the next year or two are low. But the looming euro-zone recession... 15th December 2011 · 1 min read
UK Economics Chart Pack A soft start to the festive period The high street had been weathering the economic slowdown well, but the last few weeks have seen retail spending start to soften. 15th December 2011 · 1 min read
