Intermoney | New home sales rebounded in March to 693,000, well above the 668,000 expected, but coming on the back of a downward revision of February sales by -25,000 (662,000). The point is that an acceleration was seen in quarterly terms with a March average of 667,000. For the moment, the housing sector looks set to remain a headache for the Federal Reserve. It is true that the supply of…
Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | After the Bank of Japan (BoJ) terminated the key non-conventional monetary policy tools in March, namely the negative policy rate and the yield curve control (YCC), evidence on a strengthening virtuous circle between inflation and wages has been limited. However, real wages -which fell by -1.8% year-on-year in February – are unlikely to turn positive soon. Furthermore, services inflation excluding imputed rent softened to +2.9%…
Global economyCapital Group| It seems that foreign investment patterns have yet to show a decisive successor to China. Globally, foreign direct investment (FDI) as a percentage of GDP peaked around the time of the financial crisis: investment in China stagnated slightly earlier, in the early 2000s, just after its accession to the World Trade Organisation and following rapid inflows into the manufacturing sector. In absolute terms, however, the United States…
Banc March: Round of statements from Fed members, where the word “patience” has been recurrent in their speeches and they delay the first cut to the end of the year and even 2025. The Atlanta Fed president believes that inflation is too high and does not consider it appropriate to lower the cost of money until the end of the year. He also said he was open to raising rates…
BancaMarch | The good and “less good” news from the IMF forecasts. Starting on the more optimistic side, they revise growth projections slightly upwards and suggest that the global economy may be approaching a “soft landing”. The “less good” refers to projections over a five-year horizon (+3.1%), the lowest in decades. GDP growth estimates for the global economy in 2024 increase by one tenth of a percentage point from those…
Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | China’s Two Sessions – the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) – took place from March 4-11 in Beijing. This year, the Two Sessions have been particularly important for understanding where the Chinese economy is heading, as new Premier Li Qiang delivered his first “Work Report,” which marked the beginning of a new economic era….
BancaMarch : The organisation has pointed to a slowdown in demand in the first quarter of 2024, with a variation that stands at 1.6 million barrels per day, 120,000 barrels per day lower than previously estimated. The reasons include lower than expected consumption in OECD countries due to a warmer than usual winter and a drop in manufacturing activity. Thus, for 2024 as a whole, the IEA has lowered the…
Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | Will India’s gross domestic product ever surpass that of China? Ten years ago, no one would have given this question much thought. But times are changing. The Chinese economy may now be more than five times larger than India’s, but India is growing much faster than China, and no one expects that to change any time soon. Already, since 2010, India’s economy has overtaken those…
Intermoney | ACS (ACS), through its Australian subsidiary Cimic, has been awarded a contract to refurbish a hospital in the state of New South Wales. The works will involve an investment of €450 million. The work will begin this year and will last until 2028. It will include the refurbishment of numerous departments of the hospital, as well as the construction of new facilities, including the vertical expansion of existing…
Link Securities| Credit rating agency Fitch said, after maintaining its “A+” rating on China and lowering the outlook to “negative” from “stable”, that its review reflects the growing risks to China’s public finance outlook, as the Asian country faces greater uncertainty in its economic outlook, in an environment of transition from property-dependent growth to what the Chinese government envisions as a more sustainable growth model. In addition, Fitch noted that…