Economy
According to BCA Research’s Commodity & Energy Strategy service, oil supply management by OPEC 2.0 and production discipline outside the coalition will be maintained, forcing inventories lower. Russia’s gray and dark fleets have become adept at…
Global growth will weaken in the coming months, yet monetary authorities worldwide will be reluctant to ease policy. This state of affairs foreshadows a clash between markets and policymakers in the months ahead. China’s recovery is losing steam. The latest divergence between Emerging Asian and LATAM currencies will not last.
US housing starts unexpectedly increased by 2.2% m/m in April – beating consensus estimates of a 1.4% m/m decline. The upside surprise follows Tuesday’s unanticipated 5-point jump in the NAHB homebuilder sentiment index to a 10-month high of 50. This marks…
Singapore’s trade numbers continue to send a warning for the global economy. The year-on-year pace of decline in non-oil domestic exports deepened in April after slowing in the prior two months. Importantly, the weakness is particularly pronounced among…
The lift to European investor sentiment from the ebbing energy crisis is now in the rear-view mirror. The German ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment fell back below 0 in May to -10.7 from 4.1. The negative reading indicates that the share of pessimists…
The South African rand is among the worst performing major global currencies since the DXY peaked on September 27 (behind only the Argentine peso, Russian ruble, and Turkish lira). Given that the ZAR is a high-beta currency, it typically performs well in a…
According to BCA Research’s US Equity Strategy service, investors should stay underweight banks on a tactical investment horizon as the banking turmoil is far from over, and the industry’s profitability will be under pressure. The team has been underweight…
The US Retail Sales report painted a resilient picture of American consumers in April. Although the 0.4% m/m increase in overall retail sales fell below consensus estimates of a 0.8% m/m rise, the details of the report surprised to the upside. In particular,…
The latest Chinese economic data releases for April signal a disappointing domestic recovery. Weak economic conditions during the Shanghai lockdown last April created a low base effect which boosted the annual comparison. However, the 5.6% y/y increase in…
Recent Canadian data releases have raised concerns that the Bank of Canada may abandon the conditional pause it first telegraphed following its last rate increase on January 25 in favor of more policy tightening. Headline CPI inflation unexpectedly…