Europe Economics Weekly Do policy splits on the ECB matter? Splits in the Governing Council will make life difficult for Christine Lagarde when she takes over the ECB presidency in November, but we still expect further policy easing to be agreed next year... 27th September 2019 · 7 mins read
Nordic & Swiss Economics Weekly Division at the Riksbank; SNB tweaks tiering system The tweaks to the SNB’s tiering system, which will make it more generous for domestic banks, give policymakers cover to cut interest rates further as and when needed. Meanwhile, we think the 25bp rate... 20th September 2019 · 4 mins read
Europe Economics Weekly Other euro-zone governments unlikely to go Dutch The announcement of a sizeable fiscal stimulus by the Netherlands is unlikely to be repeated by other euro-zone governments, disappointing the ECB’s hopes that fiscal policy will provide much more... 20th September 2019 · 6 mins read
Nordic & Swiss Economics Weekly SNB and Norges Bank to leave rates on hold We expect the SNB and the Norges Bank to leave their key interest rates on hold at their policy meetings next Thursday morning. Meanwhile, renewed downward pressure on the Danish krone has already... 13th September 2019 · 4 mins read
Europe Economics Weekly What more could the ECB do? Even after yesterday’s loosening of monetary policy, the ECB is unlikely to hit its inflation target. The Bank is not yet out of ammunition, but we doubt that further easing would do much good. 13th September 2019 · 5 mins read
Europe Economics Weekly ECB will need to revise its growth forecasts down The latest economic data suggest that the euro-zone economy will continue to grow slowly in the second half of the year, so the ECB will need to revise its forecasts down next week. We also think that... 6th September 2019 · 5 mins read
Nordic & Swiss Economics Weekly Riksbank sticks to its guns, for now Next week, we expect Swedish and Norwegian CPI data to show that core inflation edged up in both cases in August, and revised Q2 Swedish GDP data to show that the economy contracted even faster than... 6th September 2019 · 6 mins read
Nordic & Swiss Economics Weekly Riksbank to (finally) turn more dovish next week While the Riksbank is likely to leave its repo rate on hold at -0.25% at its policy meeting on Thursday next week, we expect it to adopt a more dovish stance and to slash its forecasts for the economy... 30th August 2019 · 6 mins read
Europe Economics Weekly Has the market done the ECB’s job for it? More policy loosening is on the way. But the case for the ECB to re-launch its public sector purchase programme is increasingly difficult to make given the recent rally in bonds. Meanwhile, we are... 30th August 2019 · 7 mins read
Europe Economics Weekly ECB preparing for action and perhaps a new target The account of the ECB Governing Council’s July meeting, published this week, confirmed that policymakers are planning to loosen policy in September. Meanwhile, the flash PMIs for August suggested... 23rd August 2019 · 8 mins read
Nordic & Swiss Economics Weekly NOK to reach record low; DKK “trumps” central target After recently changing our Norges Bank forecast, we now expect the NOK/EUR to fall to a record-low of 10.50 by end-2019. Meanwhile, next week we expect a raft of Q2 GDP data to show that while growth... 23rd August 2019 · 6 mins read
Nordic & Swiss Economics Weekly Swiss bonds soar; Norges Bank hawkish no more Safe-haven demand has seen Swiss bond yields plumb new depths and has continued to boost the franc. We think that it is only a matter of time before the SNB cuts interest rates further into negative... 16th August 2019 · 4 mins read
Europe Economics Weekly What are yield curves telling us in the euro-zone? The steepness of the yield curve in Germany has historically been a poor leading indicator of recessions. But that is cold comfort given the contraction in the economy in Q2 and the further weakness... 16th August 2019 · 6 mins read
Nordic & Swiss Economics Weekly More bad Swedish data; Norges Bank to hold rates The Norges Bank is likely to leave its key policy rate unchanged next Thursday but we expect it to leave the door open for a rate hike in September. More generally, though, the case for the Bank... 9th August 2019 · 5 mins read
Europe Economics Weekly What would early elections mean for Italy? Italy now looks set for an early election. Opinion polls suggest that a this would deliver a right-wing coalition, led by the League, which we suspect would be even more likely to clash with the EU... 9th August 2019 · 7 mins read
Europe Economics Weekly Euro-zone growth to remain slow in Q3 Another set of weak data published this week is consistent with the ECB loosening policy further fairly soon. We think the Bank is most likely to announce a rate cut next month and a fresh round of QE... 2nd August 2019 · 6 mins read
