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Available data for Q1 suggest that the global economy had a better start to the year than previously feared. That seems to have reflected the post zero-COVID rebound in China and its effects, a boost to spending from a mild winter in the US and ongoing …
3rd May 2023
Table of Key Forecasts Overview – Headline inflation looks set to fall sharply as energy effects subside and the let-up in product shortages reduces goods inflation further. We also expect services inflation to decrease as demand weakens, allowing …
26th April 2023
Once again the PMIs suggest that real activity in advanced economies continues to shrug off the effects of higher interest rates. According to the flash PMIs, GDP and employment growth both got off to a strong start in Q2, even amid the banking sector …
21st April 2023
We held an online Drop-In yesterday to present our new financial conditions indices and discuss how conditions have evolved in the wake of SVB’s collapse. (See a recording here ). This Update addresses some of the questions we received, a couple of which …
Note: We discussed our revamped FCIs and took your questions on global financial conditions in a 20-minute online briefing on Thursday, 20 th April . Watch the recording here . We have revamped our financial conditions indices (FCIs) for advanced …
18th April 2023
Recent data appear to confirm that economic activity held up better than feared at the start of 2023. Retail sales rose in most major economies over the first two months of the year, world industrial production was broadly stable and China’s zero-COVID …
13th April 2023
As of January, world trade had already fallen by more than 5% from its peak in September. And despite a slight boost from reopening in China, several leading indicators still point to further falls in trade in the months ahead. One upside is that this …
11th April 2023
Central banks focused on inflation for now, but will monitor credit in the months ahead Conditions were already tightening before recent turmoil… …and by Q3, lending surveys and spending data will show clear signs of strain Central banks are now in a …
5th April 2023
Manufacturing PMIs: weaker activity and inflation The latest manufacturing PMIs suggest that global industrial activity was broadly flat in Q1, and confirm that the post-COVID rebound in China was concentrated in the service sector. The upside is that …
3rd April 2023
In the wake of the surprise move by OPEC+ to cut oil production, we held a special online briefing about the decision’s economic and market implications – as well as what this signals about global politics. Economists from across our Macro and Commodities …
Table of Key Forecasts Global Overview – The strongest headwind for the global economy has shifted from an energy crisis and the related squeeze on real incomes to a potential banking crisis and associated drag on credit. Since banks are relatively …
30th March 2023
Inflation is now being driven by wage growth rather than just the temporary influence of energy effects and goods shortages, raising fears that central banks will be forced to engineer sharp increases in unemployment to tame it. But we argue that …
29th March 2023
The flash PMIs for March suggest that not only did advanced economies avoid recession in Q1, but the outlook for activity has improved as well. However, we still think the hit from higher interest rates will intensify . And with services price pressures …
24th March 2023
While the Credit Suisse rescue might draw a line under that particular institution’s problems, it is clear that confidence in the financial sector overall is still extremely fragile. So regardless of whether more financial institutions run into trouble, …
20th March 2023
Even before SVB’s collapse prompted a reassessment of the health of the global banking system, bank credit conditions were already tightening in response to higher interest rates. (See Chart 1.) We have written many notes to help navigate the …
17th March 2023
The ghosts of 2008 have made a sudden reappearance. Many metrics of core market functioning have worsened worryingly fast, but the overall situation is still long way short of the type of strains seen during the worst parts of the Global Financial …
16th March 2023
We have already outlined some different scenarios of how things might evolve from here and it is still possible that the situation calms down quickly. But in this Update , we think through how the more adverse of our scenarios might evolve. There are …
Given the large amount of uncertainty about how the fallout from SVB’s collapse will evolve, we have grouped possible outcomes into three broadbrush scenarios. Only in the worst scenario of financial problems spreading overseas will the global effects …
14th March 2023
This Global Economics Update answers 5 key questions about the fallout from SVB’s collapse. While the situation remains in flux, there are good reasons to think that it does not call into question the solvency of the US or wider global financial system …
13th March 2023
We think that most – perhaps two thirds – of the drag on activity from tighter monetary policy in advanced economies is still to come through in 2023. So, despite some surprisingly resilient data recently, we are sticking to our forecasts for advanced …
7th March 2023
With much of the global economy holding up surprisingly well and inflation not coming down as quickly as expected, investors are weighing up the risk that policy rates remain elevated for much longer than previously thought. This Update discusses what …
3rd March 2023
The broad-based improvement in the output components of February’s manufacturing PMIs suggests that the worst of the global industrial downturn is already in the rear-view mirror. That said, it is too early to call a durable turnaround in industrial …
1st March 2023
One development that would help to ease wage pressures would be an increase in the labour supply; there is still a significant group of countries where the pandemic is having lingering effects. The good news is that the size of the workforce is now …
28th February 2023
While a slew of recent data from advanced economies have surprised to the upside, world trade data are still very much consistent with economic weakness in the near term. Not only did Q4 see one of the biggest drops in world goods trade since the 1980s, …
The flash PMIs for February provided more evidence that advanced economies have remained more resilient than expected so far this year. Both the manufacturing and services sectors contributed to this strength, with improved sentiment and easing supply …
21st February 2023
A raft of strong data out of the US have poured cold water on the idea that its economy has tumbled into recession at the start of 2023. And this comes after GDP data revealed that the euro-zone and UK economies (narrowly) avoided outright contraction …
16th February 2023
As things stand, we think it is unlikely that non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs) would trigger a major financial crisis comparable to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) . The biggest risks relate to potential liquidity mismatches in open-ended …
15th February 2023
Central banks need wage growth to slow significantly before they can judge that inflation is firmly under control. The least painful way for this to happen is for the recent rise in “mismatch” between workers and vacancies to reverse. However, we think …
13th February 2023
Markets’ focus shifting to forward guidance as pace of rate hikes slows Any hints of an end to tightening cycles are still strongly data-dependent But the data will allow for rate cuts sooner than many central banks now imply Now that inflation has …
8th February 2023
The latest manufacturing PMIs suggest that output has continued to weaken, although the pace of contraction is slowing in several economies. Product shortages have diminished further at the global scale, and weakening demand is also allowing price …
1st February 2023
World trade has fallen in recent months on the back of slowing global growth. COVID-related weakness in Chinese activity in Q4 weighed notably on China’s exports, and while its seemingly rapid recovery has somewhat improved the global picture, weak …
26th January 2023
The losses which central banks are now incurring on the bonds they bought via their quantitative easing (QE) programmes are not a big cause for concern. These losses will not compromise central banks’ ability to operate monetary policy. And while …
25th January 2023
The flash PMIs for January provide further evidence that the euro-zone economy has so far avoided the deep downturn that most economists anticipated, whereas the US and UK surveys still point to recessions in both cases. Supply shortages have become less …
24th January 2023
Recent data have shown that activity in the US is weakening as we had expected while that in the euro-zone has been surprisingly resilient. The resilience seems to reflect a combination of supply and demand factors, including easing shortages, lower gas …
The theme of global economic fracturing, which was the focus of our Spotlight Series of research last September, is at the centre of economic discussion in 2023, including at Davos. We held an online drop-in session yesterday to update clients on our …
19th January 2023
Housing downturns are well underway in many countries and house prices and activity generally have further to fall. Construction activity is already suffering as a result. While it is hard to detect any major adverse effect on household spending, this …
16th January 2023
The past month has brought a string of positive developments on the activity and inflation side. The biggest news has been China’s decision to throw in the towel on its zero-COVID policy, which brightened the prospects for the world’s largest economy …
13th January 2023
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
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 …
9th January 2023
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 …
4th January 2023
Table of Key Forecasts Overview – Inflation is finally falling and we envisage further sharp declines in almost all economies during 2023. (See Chart 1.) In most cases, this disinflation will be more dramatic than either the consensus of economists or …
3rd January 2023
Economists from our Global Economics service held a special discussion about the trajectory of inflation across advanced and emerging economies in 2023. During this 20-minute briefing, the team addressed key issues from their latest Global Inflation Watch …
Click here to read the full report. Table of Key Forecasts Global Overview – We continue to expect the world to slip into recession in 2023 as the effects of high inflation and rising interest rates are felt. Our forecasts are below the consensus across …
19th December 2022
December’s flash PMIs suggest that the economic downturn in Q4 in Europe might not be as bad as previously feared. But the PMI fell sharply again in the US. And the surveys are still consistent with GDP in advanced economies contracting in Q4. But at …
16th December 2022
This is part of a series of reports outlining our key macro and market calls for 2023. Click here to view the full series. Our latest Global Economic Outlook can be found here . Our 2023 prognosis may be a gloomy one, but there are reasons to expect …
15th December 2022
Data over the past month have brought the clearest signs yet that inflation is starting to ease. Our estimate of world CPI inflation fell for the first time in 15 months in October, from 7.9% to 7.7%. Of course, that is still a very high rate, but there …
7th December 2022
While food inflation has surprised to the upside in major DMs, it seems to be at or near a peak. We expect a combination of base effects and an easing of underlying price pressures to drag on food inflation in 2023. Food inflation soared in the past …
2nd December 2022
The latest manufacturing PMIs suggest that global industrial production is contracting, albeit with some signs of a slowdown in the pace of contraction in Europe. Product shortages have diminished almost everywhere, with any disruption related to China …
1st December 2022
We hosted an online Drop-In yesterday to discuss China’s COVID outbreak and its domestic and global implications. This Update answers several of the questions that we received, some of which we couldn’t fit in during the event and some that we are …
30th November 2022
Trade is beginning to slow as the world heads into a recession. In real terms, world trade barely rose in September, and timelier data from Asian economies suggest outright falls are imminent. Falling export orders and shipping costs point to a further …
28th November 2022
