Foreign investor appetite for Indian assets has faded in recent weeks. Inflows into the equity market have waned, while foreigners have turned into net sellers of Indian debt. (See Chart 1.) This chimes with movements in portfolio flows in other major …
18th March 2021
Base effects will temporarily drive headline and core CPI inflation up sharply over the coming months but, with underlying price pressures also starting to mount, we expect core CPI inflation to remain elevated over the next couple of years. (See Chart …
17th March 2021
There were signs that buyer demand would hold up well this year even before the government announced the extension to the stamp duty holiday in the Budget. Since then, Google searches for property portals have surged to a six-year high. A further …
EM financial markets have been hit this month by the rise in US Treasury yields, which has re-ignited some concerns about a re-run of the Taper Tantrum. So far, capital outflows from EMs have been relatively small. And financial conditions across the …
16th March 2021
The increases in Swiss, Swedish, and Norwegian government bond yields over the past month or so have illustrated the extent to which smaller bond markets get dragged around by global conditions. As has been the case since the start of the pandemic, the …
11th March 2021
Both the hard data and more timely surveys imply that the major advanced economies have had a mixed start to the year. The US has fared particularly well, thanks to easing pandemic-related restrictions and strong fiscal stimulus. Most notably, $600 …
Rising mortgage interest rates are starting to bring housing demand down from its recent elevated level. At 3.26% in the first week of March, mortgage rates were at an eight-month high. Coupled with severe weather in the south, that lead to a steep …
The rapid rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, the reopening of schools and the staggered reopening of other sectors from mid-April should mean that the probable fall in GDP in January proves to be the low point of the year. The extension of the furlough scheme …
10th March 2021
Euro-zone inflation looks set to rise sharply in the coming months as energy inflation shoots up and core inflation edges higher. Indeed, the PMI surveys suggest that manufacturing input prices are rising at their fastest pace in nearly a decade, which …
4th March 2021
Overview – Most metals prices advanced in February, with the exception of gold and silver. However, we suspect that the current prices of industrial metals look overextended, especially given the recent run of China PMIs. Accordingly, we think that …
3rd March 2021
Overview – Oil prices have managed to claw back their lockdown-induced losses from last year, and we think that they will rise in the coming months as demand continues to revive. Meanwhile, natural gas and coal prices generally fell last month, but remain …
While equity markets came under pressure towards the end of the month, they generally weathered February’s roughly 30bp rise in the 10-year US TIPS yield quite well, with most major indices still rising slightly over the month as a whole. A more …
2nd March 2021
Overview – Most commodity prices rose in February encouraged by falling COVID-19 infections and the vaccine rollout, which point to a recovery in economic activity and higher commodities demand later in the year. That said, we expect oil to be the main …
1st March 2021
Labour markets in both countries have tightened in recent months. In Australia, the unemployment rate has fallen from a peak of 7.1% to just 6.4% in January. And other measures of spare capacity have tightened even more sharply. The underemployment rate …
The recent rally across almost all commodity prices is good news for resource-rich economies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Balance sheets in oil producing countries like Nigeria and Angola will get a boost from the pick-up in oil prices. And a surge in …
26th February 2021
The tide is turning towards populist policymaking in Latin America once again. Most notably, Brazilian President Bolsonaro’s move to fire Petrobras’ CEO , Roberto Castello Branco, may be a prelude to greater state intervention in the economy ahead of the …
25th February 2021
Incoming data continue to point to strength in domestic activity, spending and revenues. Yet strains in China’s corporate bond market continue to grow, with the value of defaults hitting all-time highs. (See Chart 1.) This underlines the degree to which …
The rise in all-property capital values in late-2020 proved short-lived and they flattened off again in January. The recent roadmap for easing England’s current lockdown is broadly consistent with our previous expectations for the recovery, so the outlook …
Emerging Europe came through the second virus wave in Q4 in a better state than we had expected, with services sectors holding up and industry booming in Central Europe. But the headwinds have mounted recently. The extension of virus containment measures …
24th February 2021
Indonesia has seen a dramatic shift in its current account position over the past year, with recently published data showing that the country recorded its second consecutive quarterly surplus in the final quarter of last year. The surplus of 0.3% of GDP …
Indian GDP data due to be released on Friday are likely to show only a small contraction in annual growth in Q4 2020, and high-frequency indicators point to a relatively strong start to 2021. Indeed, our in-house mobility tracker suggests that activity …
We still expect emerging market (EM) “risky” assets and currencies to make further gains this year, despite growing concerns about another “taper tantrum”. EM assets and currencies have made significant gains since their troughs last year. And we think …
23rd February 2021
Dollar bond issuance in the Gulf has got off to a quick start this year with Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Bahrain selling a total of $10.25bn of bonds in the past month. If oil prices continue to rise, as we expect, budget deficits will narrow and reduce …
While the mood in EM financial markets has soured a little of late, from an economic standpoint, the past month has brought several positive developments. First, Q4 GDP data released so far have generally been better than expected. Recoveries have been …
The pandemic has thrown up many surprises for the Canadian economy, the latest of which is the speed at which oil production has rebounded. Even though global fuel demand remains weak amid ongoing global travel restrictions, the Canada Energy Regulator’s …
While virus restrictions have weighed on retail markets across Europe, the hit has been particularly severe in CEE. Indeed, core-CEE prime retail rents fell by an eye-watering 20% last year, the sharpest drop since our series began in 2007. (See Chart 1.) …
Office and industrial yields edged lower in Q4 as the recovery in Scandinavian investment took hold. (See Chart 1.) However, the pandemic continued to weigh on occupiers, with retail rents declining further in most markets and office rents taking a hit in …
22nd February 2021
The strong rise in output in Q4 2020 to just 1.2% below Q4 2019 levels bolsters our view that Japan’s economy will be back to the level it reached before the tax hike and close to its pre-virus path by mid-2022. (See Chart 1.) Daily virus cases have …
The economy has started 2021 on a stronger footing than we anticipated. The 5.3% surge in retail sales last month underlined just how quickly stimulus cheques fed through to stronger spending on big-ticket items, while loosening virus restrictions are …
19th February 2021
Fiscal and monetary stimulus have kept economic growth solid and will support a continued recovery. While this bodes well for occupier demand, structural factors have weighed heavily on the office and retail sectors. That weakness is set to persist this …
18th February 2021
In our view, central banks’ cautious approach to tightening means that the yields of 10-year government bonds will rise only slowly in the next few years, even as the global economy recovers further. Since the last DM Markets Chart Book on 16 th December, …
Despite the sharp hit to economic activity, euro-zone prime commercial property values were comparatively unscathed last year, falling by just 2%. (See Chart 1.) However, this hides large differences in performance across the sectors. Indeed, industrial …
16th February 2021
There are clear signs that the end of the stamp duty holiday is causing the housing market to slow. In January the RICS reported a sharp drop in new buyer enquiries and seller instructions, and house prices edged down for the first time since last summer. …
Higher oil prices will provide a boost to energy inflation in most countries over the coming months (see here ), including in Switzerland and the Nordics. In Sweden and Norway, the energy component will be additionally boosted by a spike in electricity …
12th February 2021
Mortgage rates rose to a 12-week high in the first week February, and a further rise in the 10-year Treasury yield to 1.5% means they will increase to around 3.2% by the end of the year. Alongside surging house prices and record low inventory, that …
Global growth slowed throughout the fourth quarter and most economies entered the new year on a weak footing. We have limited hard data for 2021 so far, but timely surveys and our high-frequency Mobility Trackers are generally consistent with a further …
10th February 2021
Our forecast that the euro-zone economy rebounds strongly hinges on Covid-19 restrictions being lifted by the middle of the year. Unfortunately, vaccine supply shortages, distribution problems and concerns about variants could force governments to keep …
4th February 2021
After having been boosted by stockbuilding ahead of the end of the Brexit transition period on 31 st December, exports and imports were always going to fall in January. But the added drags of COVID-19, the new Brexit customs procedures and the surge in …
3rd February 2021
Extreme speculative movements in the prices of a handful of stocks and of silver have generated a lot of headlines over the past month. But those surges have not been reflected in the performance of risky assets more generally, many of which have taken a …
2nd February 2021
Underlying inflation picked up strongly in New Zealand in Q4, with core inflation rising above the mid-point of the RBNZ’s 1-3% target band. That supports our view that the RBNZ will not cut rates further. But we expect strong house price growth and a …
1st February 2021
Short-term funding costs for banks have risen sharply during the past couple of weeks. The 7-day depository repo rate (DR007), which has been flagged by the PBOC as a key benchmark and focus of monetary policy, jumped over 100 basis points to a two-year …
29th January 2021
Governments across Sub-Saharan Africa seem to have mixed plans for fiscal policy this year. There are signs that policymakers in some countries – including Nigeria, Ghana and perhaps Kenya – will continue to provide stimulus in 2021, reducing the risk of …
28th January 2021
The surge in COVID-19 cases and tightening of containment measures across most of the region are likely to bring the economic recovery in Latin America to a standstill in Q1. High-frequency mobility indicators have stayed well below their pre-Christmas …
Headline inflation has crept higher in most countries across Emerging Asia over the past few months and looks set to rise sharply over the first half of this year due to a rebound in energy price inflation caused by the recovery in global oil prices. …
27th January 2021
10-year gilt yields haven’t been significantly dragged higher by 10-year US Treasury yields because, unlike their US counterparts, break-even inflation rates in the UK have not been boosted by expectations of a big fiscal stimulus, a rise in inflation and …
Governments across the Middle East and North Africa have begun the roll out of COVID-19 vaccines with parts of the Gulf making a particularly strong start. The UAE and Bahrain have already administered vaccines to around 26% and 8% of their populations, …
26th January 2021
Canada will receive only enough doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to provide the equivalent of one dose to 16% of the population by the end of the first quarter. By contrast, even in the unlikely event that there is no further improvement in the …
The roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines is getting underway across EMs, but in many cases progress has been slow-going . In the meantime, many countries are suffering from worsening outbreaks. New cases are high and/or rising across Latin America (see Chart 1), …
22nd January 2021
Russia and Poland have been regional outperformers in recent months due the relatively light-touch containment measures in the former and the strength of export-orientated sectors in the latter. But Turkey’s recovery has come off the boil and strict …
A return to rental growth and stronger capital value growth in December hint to a turnaround in UK commercial property. But this was a surprising development and we think it is too early to call the recovery given the headwinds in early 2021. With virus …
