Highlights The prevalence of oligopolies and monopolies in a number of industries as well as lack of investment in hard and soft infrastructure have been the underlying cause of sluggish productivity growth in Mexico. This has weighed…
Highlights Stronger global growth in the wake of continued and expected fiscal and monetary stimulus, and progress against COVID-19 are boosting oil demand assumptions by the major data suppliers for this year. We lifted our…
The Global Economic Policy Uncertainty Index’s sharp descent has stopped for now. Market instruments that are sensitive to geopolitical risk corroborate the signal from the global uncertainty index. For example, gold has…
Dear Client, Next week I will be hosting a series of Roundtable discussions with BCA’s clients in both Europe and Asia. Our next report published on April 28th will be a recap of my observations from these meetings. Best regards…
China’s trade surplus contracted significantly in March, falling to $13.8 billion from $37.8 billion. The narrower surplus reflects both a deceleration in exports and an acceleration in imports. Exports were weaker than…
China’s credit trends continue to point to a winding down of last year’s massive stimulus. Although new loans of CNY 2.7 trillion in March exceeded the CNY 2.3 trillion anticipated by the consensus, the annual growth…
Chinese stocks are increasingly unattractive amid both policy tightening (see The Numbers) and a regulatory clampdown targeting real estate, banking, and tech. Regarding the latter, an anti-monopoly probe on e-commerce giant…
China’s Producer Price Index jumped from 1.7% y/y to 4.4% y/y in March, above consensus expectations of 3.6% y/y. The acceleration is in line with the trend in recent months, raising the risk that the PBoC will respond…
Highlights Continued upgrades to global economic growth – most recently by the IMF this week –will support higher natgas prices. In our estimation, gas for delivery at Henry Hub, LA, in the coming withdrawal season (…