Economy
Throughout this cycle, US housing has defied expectations. Overall home prices have never fallen since the pandemic, even as the Fed has conducted its second most aggressive tightening campaign in history. Today, home price growth remains robust, running at…
Equity markets reacted negatively to the preliminary Q1 US GDP on Thursday, with the S&P 500 shedding 0.5%. Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield rose 6 bps in response to the stronger-than-expected core PCE inflation print for Q1. Importantly, Thursday’s…
Tuesday’s Australian inflation release came in hotter than anticipated. Quarter-on-quarter headline inflation increased from 0.6% in Q4 2023 to 1% in the first quarter of this year, above expectations of 0.8%. Although annual inflation declined from 4.1% to…
Results of Germany’s IFO business climate survey for April sent a positive message on Tuesday. The overall Business Climate Index increased from 87.9 to 89.4, beating expectations of 88.9. Assessments of both the current business situation (increased from…
The resilience of the US economy has led economists to consistently revise up their consensus real GDP growth forecast for 2024, which now stands at 2.4%, up from 0.6% in July 2023. Conversely, the 2024 consensus Eurozone growth estimate has been trending…
BCA Research’s Emerging Markets Strategy service concludes that among the CE3 currencies, the zloty and the koruna will be the relative winners, while the forint will likely be the worst performer of the three. That said, all three CE3 currencies will weaken…
The disinflation process is over in Poland and Hungary. Only the Czech Republic will see its core inflation meet its central bank target this year. The reason is much tighter labor market dynamics in the first two. Investors should continue to short a basket of CE3 currencies vis-à-vis the US dollar.
China’s economy is cruising at a very low altitude. The odds are that China’s equity rebound is running out of time. The RMB will continue to depreciate versus the US dollar in the coming months, albeit the pace may be modest.
Euro Area small caps typically outperform large caps whenever the trade weighted euro appreciates and underperform whenever it depreciates. The rationale is simple. Most European large cap companies are large multinationals that export their products outside…
According to BCA Research’s US Equity Strategy service, Q1 earnings results signaled that net interest income (NII) growth is set to decline in US banks. For nearly two years, America’s largest banks enjoyed a surge in NII thanks to rising rates and the…