Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | Hong Kong has experienced three years of recession within the last four. The ripple effect is painful with a persistent fiscal deficit. The recent budget does not change the trend as the fiscal account (excluding bond issuance) will remain in deficit at 3.9% of GDP in FY 23/24, despite an improvement from -7.3% of GDP in FY 22/23. Hong Kong’s fiscal reserves also depleted from…
Singular Bank : The world’s leading group in the dairy products segment (with a dominant position in Yogurt), in Water and in Infant and Medical Nutrition, has published its results for the last quarter of the year. Like-for-like sales (LFL) rose 7.0%, beating consensus on almost all measures, thanks to an 11.3% rise in prices and despite a 4.4% drop in volume. By business, EDP (Essential Dairy & Plant-based) grew…
Banca March : In the US, Q4 GDP was revised downwards: growth came in at +2.7% quarter-on-quarter annualised vs. +2.9% published in the first estimate. Although GDP continues to show sustained growth, the component reading was weak as this revision was mainly explained by a lower contribution from private consumption that grew by +1.4% quarterly annualised compared to +2.1% previously published. Moving on to other data, in the labour market,…
Bankinter : The Central Bank keeps interest rates unchanged. The one-year benchmark stands at 3.65% and the five-year at 4.30%. OPINION: The PBOC is not making any changes, in line with expectations. It is one of the few central banks that maintains an accommodative monetary policy to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, the loss of global momentum, which impacts its exports, and the housing crisis. It is maintaining this…
The unexpected US retail sales data triggered a sharp rise in yields, especially the 2-year UST, which reached almost 4.70%, pushing the inversion of the 2s10s curve above 90 bps for the first time since the early 1980s, and extending expectations of Fed tightening into the summer. The swap market was even discounting an interest rate peak of 5.30% in July.
Santander Corporate & Investment | There are no divisions here, inflation data are undoubtedly starting to look more erratic after the first big downward adjustments at the end of 2022, falls that raised hopes of a pivotal moment for central banks and explained a large part of the unprecedented January rally in the markets. Base effects will be the main ally for much of 2023, but our economists believe that…
Link Securities | According to data from the Japanese government cabinet, Japan’s gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 0.2% in 4Q2022 compared to 3Q2022, compared to a revised contraction of 0.3% in the previous quarter, although the reading was below the 0.5% growth expected by the analyst consensus, which was in line with the preliminary reading of the figure. Private consumption rose after the removal of tight border controls, and…
Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | As the world awaits the return of Chinese tourists, a long-standing question may reemerge. China has gradually opened its capital account over the past decade, but there are still considerable restrictions. As a result, tourism has become one of the channels for capital flights based on the difference between the balance of payment data in China and globally. But there is a major problem with…
Link Securities | The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Friday that Russia’s government had that day announced that it plans to cut its oil production by about 500,000 barrels per day, or about 5 percent, starting next month, in a move it said was in response to Western sanctions. The newspaper notes that Friday’s move is the first in which Russia telegraphed a specific response to oil markets to…
CoM | The UK economy, the second largest in the Old Continent, stagnated in the fourth quarter of 2022, narrowly managing to avoid going into technical recession, following a 0.2% contraction in gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter of last year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has reported. Despite dodging recession in the last quarter of 2022, the British economy contracted by 0.5% in December, after growing…