Soaring Chinese imports of platinum group metals (PGM) could be taken as a sign that end-use is racing back towards its pre-virus level. However, we think that higher imports merely reflect opportunistic buying. Accordingly, we continue to expect only a …
11th June 2020
Caught out with high levels of debt during the 1991 asset price crash, many Japanese firms then accumulated significant rainy-day funds to shield themselves against a future crisis. That trend intensified after the global financial crisis – when …
Early evidence suggests that the coronavirus and South Africa’s lockdown measures are taking a heavy toll on the economy and supports our view that the economy will decline sharply over the year as a whole. Our forecast is for a contraction of 11.0%, …
Even though working from home has meant business as usual for many office occupiers, weak activity elsewhere has still caused euro-zone office output to fall. With the economic recovery expected to be gradual, these linkages to the wider economy will …
The Fed left its policy stance broadly unchanged at the conclusion of today’s FOMC meeting, but it did strengthen its forward guidance a little – by publishing interest rate projections that show nearly all officials believe the fed funds rate will still …
10th June 2020
This year’s rally in the gold price has come on the back of a coronavirus-led surge in safe-haven buying and a plunge in interest rate expectations. More recently, however, we suspect that the uptick in the gold price has come from investors positioning …
Recently released government budget data for April suggest that fiscal deficits in many EMs, including in Brazil, Mexico, India and Turkey, may be running at 10-20% of GDP. This won’t cause a spate of acute fiscal crises, but it is yet another reason to …
Unlike the period after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), we doubt that the government will immediately turn to a prolonged period of austerity after the surge in the debt to GDP ratio during the coronavirus crisis. This suggests the economy won’t have …
The tripling of the VAT rate from July will cause inflation in Saudi Arabia to jump, but the impact may be relatively less severe than it was when VAT was first introduced at the start of 2018. That said, the hit to households’ finances reinforces our …
This Update draws together the conclusions from the various pieces of research that we have published in recent weeks on how the fiscal costs of the crisis will be dealt with. In short, we are generally sanguine about the rise in government debt, which we …
Despite the sharp rise in the unemployment rate last month, there are signs that the Korean labour market has turned a corner. This adds to evidence that the economy has now bottomed out. The unemployment rate shot up from 3.8% in April to 4.5% in May, …
Palm oil consumption will be hit hard by weak biofuel demand in 2020. However, we think that consumption will rebound strongly next season as higher biodiesel mandates incentivise more biofuel production. As a result, we expect palm oil prices to rise …
Timely activity indicators suggest that the Scandinavian economies are already on the gradual path to normality, which will provide support to occupier demand and, in turn, prime office rents this year. Scandinavian economies appear to be holding up …
Even after further easing of South African lockdown measures last week, a quarter of the economy remains closed. And the impact of the lockdown on unemployment and insolvencies will cause long-lasting economic damage that will hold back the recovery. We …
The bulk of the leap in the saving rate will be reversed as the economy opens and people start spending again but the desire to hold more savings post-lockdown combined with lower incomes will weigh on consumption over the next few years, prolonging the …
Financial conditions have eased substantially across major EMs over the past few months, but we doubt that this fading headwind will turn into a major tailwind for activity in the coming quarters. Financial conditions gauge the state of financial markets …
9th June 2020
The unexpected 290,000 rise in employment in May was driven by Quebec, where restrictions on activity were lifted early in the month. As the other three most populous provinces lifted restrictions from the second half of May, and the evidence from Quebec …
Governments in Chile and Peru should be able to live comfortably with a jump in their public debt-to-GDP ratios this year. Those in Colombia, Mexico and, to a greater extent, Brazil will struggle. The first port of call will probably be renewed austerity, …
As the crisis in Italy escalated, record numbers of disillusioned jobseekers dropped out of the labour force, causing the unemployment rate to fall. Now that the lockdown is being lifted and activity is recovering, many of those people should return to …
The early signs are that activity is recovering quickly in Poland as lockdown measures are lifted. Provided that the virus is contained, we think that Poland will experience the smallest contraction in GDP across Europe this year. Large policy stimulus …
A reasonable proportion of the Central London office completions for this year are likely to be pushed into 2021, but a fall in employment will hit demand for office space and lead to a pick-up in vacancy. This will put downward pressure on rental values, …
The unexpected 2.5 million rebound in nonfarm payroll employment in May, against a consensus expectation of a 7.5 million decline , has generated a lot of speculation that the figures were either manipulated for political reasons or juiced by firms …
Data so far have shown a significant variation in how the virus has affected activity, with economies in Southern Europe hit very hard, the US suffering somewhat less and some Asian economies relatively unscathed. Differences are related to the timing and …
Lockdowns are being eased in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh without any sign that coronavirus infections are being brought under control. Economic recoveries will face greater headwinds than in places where the virus has been contained as a result. But …
The sharp decline in activity in Australia is set to result in much weaker inflation before long. And even though output will recover rapidly over the coming months as virus restrictions are eased, we think that inflation will remain well below the RBA’s …
With domestic infections contained, the main way in which the global pandemic has threatened Taiwan economically is through weakness in external demand. Exports have held up much better than we had originally anticipated, and so we are raising our 2020 …
8th June 2020
As expected, OPEC+ extended its 9.7m bpd production cut for another month (until end-July) . Given that prices have rallied strongly in recent weeks, the group’s caution reflects the still-high level of uncertainty surrounding prospects for oil demand. …
Although China’s commodity imports volumes dropped in May, we expect the recent infrastructure-related fiscal support measures to lift domestic demand and commodity imports in the coming months . China’s exports fell by 3.3% y/y in May in US dollar terms, …
The minutes of the Reserve Bank’s late May policy meeting – in which it trimmed both the repo and reverse repo rates – show that the MPC has become markedly more bearish on the outlook for economic growth amid the coronavirus containment hit. And with …
While sovereign bond yields in most developed markets are unlikely to reach new lows and, in our view, will stay around their current levels for some time, local-currency sovereign bond yields in some emerging markets could yet fall further, especially if …
5th June 2020
If we are right that the world faces a period of low inflation over the next few years investors are unlikely to begin anticipating tighter monetary policy and so undermine the returns from government bonds. We think it is much more likely that returns …
As US states emerge from lockdown and the worst of the economic crisis appears to be over, thoughts are turning to the recovery. In this, not all parts of the US will be equal. Some insight into the resilience of markets can be gained by looking at …
Consumption of natural rubber (NR) will be hit by sharply lower vehicle production this year. That said, we think that a revival in both demand and oil prices later in the year should give a lift to NR prices . Like most commodities, the price of natural …
Turkey’s public finances remain in good shape compared with most other EMs but they have deteriorated in recent years and are no longer the pillar of strength that they once were. The debt-to-GDP ratio will continue to rise and, as investors demand a …
OPEC+ is expected to meet in the next few days. Despite reports of rifts amongst its members, we think that it will agree to extend its current 9.7m bpd production cut for at least another month . At the latest meeting in April, OPEC and its allies …
Public sector debt to GDP ratios are going to rise sharply and, in most cases, governments can tolerate this. But to retain the faith of financial markets, they might still need to make sure that debt is on a stable trajectory. For most, this is not a …
The steepening of EM local currency government bond yield curves since the crisis began in mid-February largely reflects a fall in short-term rates, but in some cases, like Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, it also reflects persistently high long-term …
4th June 2020
The ECB’s decision to increase the size and duration of the PEPP should sustain the positive sentiment towards the euro-zone in the near term and reinforce the sense that, for now, European policymakers have got their act together. But more difficult …
In a world in which central banks and governments are likely to ensure that sovereign bond yields stay low for the long-term, real estate is well-placed to benefit. Therefore, although we expect property yields to rise this year, we still expect …
The recent progress in talks between Argentina’s government and bondholders suggests that a debt restructuring deal is increasingly likely. However, we are sceptical of the IMF’s view that the government’s latest offer would restore public debt …
The government today unveiled a grant for buyers of new homes. While grants for first-time home buyers boosted home sales during the global financial crisis, the new scheme won’t offset the impact of the border closure on housing demand. We still expect …
Daily price data give a strong indication that food inflation dropped in May, most likely as supply disruptions eased a touch and agricultural activity was allowed to resume. With global oil prices low and domestic demand collapsing, there is little …
The Bank of Canada made no new policy announcements today and instead scaled back some of its liquidity operations. But with its focus now shifting to “supporting the resumption of growth”, we think new Governor Tiff Macklem will expand the Bank’s asset …
3rd June 2020
Many firms have furloughed employees during the state of emergency and stopped paying wages. But with the economy now opening up again and the government’s employment subsidy scheme starting to be used more widely, labour income should bounce back even if …
The latest activity data suggest that stringent lockdowns are causing especially deep falls in GDP in Peru and Argentina. But with the region as a whole struggling to contain outbreaks, and limited scope for looser policy, the economic recovery is …
Disruption to supply chains and depressed demand mean that euro-zone goods exports will slump this year, hitting open economies such as the Netherlands and Germany the most. But the hit to services exports, notably tourism, is likely to be bigger, leaving …
On the face of it, the surge in unemployment in the US implies that households are being hit harder by the crisis than those in Europe. But much of this reflects differences in the way that furloughed workers are being treated in the data. Taking this and …
The measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak have shut down economies across the world, leading to job losses and falls in income. Migrant workers appear to have felt the brunt of this and the resulting drop in remittances will hit the economies in …
Exchange stocks are best used to judge the breadth of the downturn in metal demand, rather than the depth. With that in mind, we think that exchange stocks will help to tell us when demand for metal has started to recover, though they will probably …
