The Santander analysts review the electric car market and explain that “Delivery times for the main models in Europe have increased considerably. The Renault Zoe and Twingo Electric are no longer sold in Germany because delivery times are too long. The waiting time for an Audi Q4 e-tron is now 18 months. This also explains the current success of Stellantis Electric Vehicles in Europe, where their lead times are shorter…
European Views | The conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues and so do the global gas supply issues. Iran hopes to step in and become Europe’s main gas provider replacing Russian gas export. Iran to Offer Alternative to Russian Gas Export in Europe Being the second-largest gas reserves globally, Iran has 34 trillion cubic metres of natural gas. It’s nearly 17% of the world’s total reserves. Some believe that Iran…
Hamza Mudassir (The Conversation) | The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is now Twitter’s largest shareholder after acquiring a 9.2% stake in the social media platform for just under US$3 billion (£2.3 billion). The announcement drove Twitter’s share price up 27%, and it continued to grow in after-hours trading. This investor enthusiasm is not surprising. Social media platforms have been suffering lately thanks to newly developed pressures in their ecosystems….
A&G | Last week we saw the US 2 year rate move above the 10 year rate. We refer to this phenomenon as a yield curve inversion and it has historically been a leading indicator of recessions, but a very leading indicator. We should bear in mind that the sample is very small, as we only have data for 10 recessions and all 10 have been preceded by an inverted…
Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | When the Chinese economy sneezes, the global supply chain catches a cold. After the successful containment at the initial stage, China has decided to maintain its dynamic zero-covid strategy against a more contagious albeit milder variant of the virus, namely Omicron. The approach has initiated the lockdown in Shanghai. Given its economic size, trading role, and the contagion risk of lockdowns in the surrounding provinces,…
Simon Harvey, Head of FX Market Analysis at Monex Europe | On the one hand, core inflation moderated in March with a sequential slowdown from 0.5% m-o-m to 0.3% m-o-m, while on the other hand, headline inflation beat expectations. Headline inflation rose by 1.2% month-on-month, in line with expectations, while the annualised rate exceeded expectations by 0.1 percentage point to 8.5%. The slowdown in the month-on-month core CPI to the…
Miguel Navascués | Although there seems to be no awareness of it, the current problem in the world economy is of cosmic proportions, a problem for which we have no close antecedents. We have huge pockets of liquidity, originated to alleviate the contraction of the pandemic, now that inflation is rebounding with great vigour, and a recession that is already being announced in some indicators; what some translate as an…
Bankinter | Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, Twitter’s largest shareholder and the world’s richest man posted a tweet yesterday in which he encouraged Spain and Portugal to carry out a “massive deployment” in solar energy. According to Musk, Spain and Portugal could supply energy to all of Europe.Opinion: Elon Musk’s comments had a positive impact on the stock market, leading to strong rises in the main shares of renewable…
Francisco Vidal (Intermoney) | In China, the authorities insist that they will support a scenario of solid economic growth with their actions. However, the week began in the Asian giant with the 1 and 5-year LPR rates remaining at 3.7% and 4.6%, respectively. And while in China we are witnessing new promises of support for activity which do not materialise in immediate action, in many other countries we are witnessing…
Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | As the Yen rapidly depreciates above USDJPY=120, the unintended consequences of the Bank of Japan (BoJ)’s Yield Curve Control (YCC) has become increasingly apparent. Last month, the BoJ announced it would intervene in the JGB market to protect the 0.25% ceiling on the 10-year JGB yields as they were being pushed up by higher US Treasury yields. Furthermore, after the Fed began to tighten last…