The cover story of The Economist magazine this past week has been largely based on our long-held view that China’s economic growth would slow to just 2% by the end of this decade, and wouldn’t surpass the US as the world’s biggest economy. The Capital …
21st May 2023
Emerging market equities have typically outperformed their developed market counterparts after US recessions. While we don’t foresee them replicating the sort of outperformance seen after the early-1990s or early-2000s recessions, we do think the MSCI …
19th May 2023
The economy has been relatively resilient so far, but with the banking turmoil set to weigh on activity, we continue to expect a recession this year. Slower growth has already translated to softer occupier demand across all property sectors. This will …
We think China’s Loan Prime Rate will be left unchanged (Mon.) We expect the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to raise its policy rate by 25bp, to 5.50% (Wed.) Real consumption in the US probably rebounded a bit in April (Fri.) Key Market Themes We suspect a …
The Bank of Canada’s latest Financial System Review reiterated the risks to households from higher interest rates, but concluded that most are coping well. Following the rapid turnaround in the housing market and upside surprise to CPI inflation in April, …
Dealmaking was a major driver of commodity prices this week. The 11 th hour extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative alleviated fears of Ukraine’s grain exports being cut off from world markets, pushing corn and wheat prices down. And in the US, …
Ecuador: Political risks in the spotlight Ecuador’s political crisis escalated this week after President Guillermo Lasso invoked the “mutual death” clause, dissolving the National Assembly to dodge an imminent impeachment vote. This move triggers fresh …
Erdogan in pole position for the presidency Sunday’s presidential election result in Turkey was all about Erdogan. He gained more than 49% of the vote share after some of the more reliable polls last week had opposition candidate Kemel Kilicdaroglu at …
SA: threat of AGOA loss no disaster, but unwelcome Allegations that South Africa has supplied arms to Russia has led to calls for the country to lose preferential trade access to the US via the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA). As it happens, …
The UK economy’s underperformance and higher and longer lasting inflation problem has earned it the unenviable title of “stagflation nation”. (See here and our podcast : “What’s wrong with the UK economy and what will it take to fix it”?) And speculation …
The US dollar looks set to end the week stronger against most major currencies amid the prospect of policy rates in developed markets (DM) remaining “higher for longer”. While this week’s rise in DM bond yields was broad-based, short-term yields in the US …
Recent solid activity data and the apparent progress on debt ceiling negotiations appear to have convinced some Fed officials that it is still too early to pause interest rate hikes. We still aren’t convinced the Fed will hike again in June, but there is …
The larger than anticipated rebound in mortgage approvals in March and a slowdown (or even partial reversal) of house price falls suggested that the housing market downturn may have ended much earlier than we anticipated. The unwinding of some of the …
Weakness mainly due to lower vehicle sales The fall in retail sales in March was driven mainly by lower vehicle sales. Overall sales volumes still rose by 4.9% annualised last quarter, suggesting that a pick-up in consumption supported GDP growth, but the …
Capital value falls slowed in Q1 as the surge in euro-zone all-property yields cooled. But, with rent growth decelerating across all sectors, the increase in yields was still enough to drive another 4% q/q fall in capital values. (See Chart 1.) Although …
The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) opted to leave interest rates unchanged at Thursday evening’s MPC meeting and the lack of comment on the pound will only add to investor concerns about the commitment to orthodoxy. Unless something changes soon, the path …
Sweden inflation surprise As of this week, coverage of Switzerland and the Nordic economies will be incorporated, along with the euro-zone, in our expanded Europe Economics service. We will continue to analyse the economic data from the Nordics and …
Fracturing back in the spotlight The worsening relationship between China and the US is set to be one of the key themes of the G7 meeting, now underway in Japan. This dedicated page on our website is the best place to go for our ongoing work on …
Chinese government bonds have rallied over the past couple of months, with the 2-year yield falling over 20bps since mid-March. This reflects mounting expectations for monetary easing in response to what has widely been viewed as an underwhelming …
Although monetary tightening has been a drag on equities over the past year or so, we don’t think the end of rate hikes means the stock market is set for big gains. Rate hikes among developed markets look to be drawing to a close . In particular, we think …
Over the past couple of weeks we have held a series of roundtable discussions with clients across Asia and North America on the outlook for EMs. In this Update we provide our thoughts on the recurring questions that we received, including on China’s …
Election result could slow the pace of reforms We learnt this week that Congress secured victory in the state election in Karnataka , gaining 135 out of 224 assembly seats – well above the 113 seats needed for a majority. (See Chart 1.) Congress has …
Productivity crunch creates dilemma for RBA The RBA has been ringing the alarm bells about dismal productivity gains for a while now. In the minutes of its May meeting, the Board noted that if productivity growth did not return to the modest pace recorded …
Consumers running out of steam The 0.4% q/q expansion in Q1 real GDP reported on Wednesday outperformed the 0.2% we and the consensus had expected. One reason was that private consumption rose at a quicker 0.6% q/q than the 0.4% the consensus was …
Inflation should fall rapidly in H2 on stronger yen, weaker wage growth Underlying inflation pushed past 4.0% for the first time in 40 years partly due to a spike in food inflation. Meanwhile, services inflation set a fresh 30-year high, largely …
Mexico’s central bank held its policy rate at 11.25% at today’s Board meeting, bringing the tightening cycle to an end. But with inflation unlikely to return to target until late-2024, policy will probably stay tighter than most expect over the next …
18th May 2023
While banking sector strains have become less acute over recent weeks, core money markets remain tense as uncertainty grows around the potential fallout from even a temporary default on US Treasuries. Despite the recent failure of First Republic and …
Our best guess is that the impact of monetary policy tightening on euro-zone economic activity will be less than five percent of GDP, which is the lower end of a range estimated in an ECB Economic Bulletin paper this week. However, even that could be …
We expect Mexico’s central bank to deliver a final 25bp hike, to 11.50% (Thu.) We think inflation in Japan climbed further in May (Fri.) Canada’s retail sales probably fell in March (Fri.) Key Market Themes The S&P 500 has posted solid gains in 2023, but …
Sales in a slump Existing home sales fell back towards their recent lows in April, not helped by a very tight inventory. The high cost of a new mortgage is acting to discourage homeowners with a low fixed-rate mortgage from moving, which is disrupting …
Egypt stepping up reforms to attract investments The first privatisation deal in nearly a year took place in Egypt this week and the prime minister outlined fresh steps to overhaul the business environment, but loosening the central bank’s grip on the …
The sick man of Europe. Broken Britain. Stagflation nation. The UK has had an unenviable post-pandemic economic recovery, lagging other advanced economies on growth but ahead of the pack when it comes to inflation. But how much of what ails the UK economy …
Growth in Chile’s economy accelerated at the start of the year, but the headline figure masks signs of pronounced weakness. We expect the economy to struggle over the coming quarters amid tight monetary policy and project a 0.3% contraction over 2023 as a …
Economies across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have significantly underperformed the euro-zone and the rest of the world in recent quarters, which has its roots in the scale of the inflation shock that the region suffered and the impact on domestic …
A quick solution to South Africa’s energy crisis is nowhere to be seen. Not only will power cuts remain a drag on economy but there are growing concerns that they are fuelling inflation, threatening the country with a period of stagflation. That presents …
Any impact of QT has so far been modest and swamped by the effects of higher policy rates. Asset disposals might put some upward pressure on yields in the euro-zone in the near term, but the process of balance sheet normalisation will be slow and in some …
The aggregate supply of labour in the euro-zone has recovered comparatively well from the pandemic, albeit with big differences between the major economies. But despite this, the labour market is very tight throughout the region and wage growth looks set …
Underlying inflation to rise further before falling due to stubborn food price pressures Headline inflation rose from 3.2% to 3.5% in April, despite a 4.4% fall in energy prices. As was the case with Tokyo, that was largely due to a rise in underlying …
The central bank in the Philippines (BSP) today left interest rates unchanged (at 6.25%) but stated it was ready to resume its tightening cycle later in the year. However, with inflation falling back and headwinds to the economy mounting, we expect rates …
Fears among investors have continued to grow that Egypt’s government will default on its debt in the coming years although, for now at least, there remains a path to avoid such an outcome. Taking that path will require the government to step back from …
Our in-house metals demand proxies show that growth held steady in February. While growth will accelerate in the coming months due to base effects, we think that underlying demand is more subdued. The CE Demand Proxies aim to measure physical demand for …
Tightening cycle at an end The central bank in the Philippines today left interest rates unchanged (at 6.25%) but stated it was ready to resume its tightening cycle later in the year. However, with inflation falling back and headwinds to the economy …
The weakness in April’s jobs data suggest that the labour demand is starting to cool. Admittedly, there continue to be some pockets of resilience in the labour market. However, with wage growth remaining sluggish, we think it’s more likely than not that …
Labour market will loosen further The labour market is showing signs of cooling, reinforcing our view that the RBA’s tightening cycle is over. The 4,300 fall in employment in April was much weaker than most had anticipated (Refinitiv Consensus: +25k, …
Exports outlook improving in Q2, but not for long The trade deficit narrowed in April as export values rose faster than import values, largely reflecting the faster fall in import prices. Export climate readings suggest export volumes will continue to …
Falling energy imports supported trade balance The trade deficit narrowed in April as export values rose faster than import values. That’s more a reflection of lower energy prices, which decreased the value of fuel imports. Export values increased by 2.6% …
The rapid turnaround in the housing market and the upside surprise to CPI inflation in April have raised the case for another interest rate hike from the Bank of Canada, which we now judge is slightly more likely than not. The potential for US debt …
17th May 2023
