Inflation/Deflation
The Swiss franc is among the worst performing major currencies so far this year. This marks a reversal following its stellar performance last year. The Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) support for the domestic currency is behind last year’s strength.…
Indian economic data releases delivered a positive signal on Monday. CPI inflation slowed from 5.7% y/y to 5.1% y/y in January – within the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) 2-6% target range. Meanwhile, industrial production growth accelerated from 2.4% y/y to…
The latest Canadian data suggest that although demand is cooling down, the Canadian economy is not in freefall. The unemployment rate fell for the first time since December 2022, declining by 0.1 percentage points to 5.7%, compared to consensus…
Easier financial conditions, rising home prices, rebounding consumer sentiment, and a stabilization in manufacturing activity all augur well for near-term US growth prospects. An unsustainably low savings rate is a key risk to the US economic outlook. Our revised forecast is centered on a recession starting in late 2024 or early 2025.
Thursday’s Chinese CPI and PPI release for January indicates that deflationary pressures continue to dominate the domestic economy. On the consumer side, prices registering the fastest pace of annual decline in 15 years. The CPI’s 0.8% y/y decrease is more…
According to the latest MBA weekly survey, mortgage applications increased 3.7% in the week ending February 2. The contents of the report were mixed. A 12.3% jump in the refinance index drove the increase while mortgage applications to purchase a home fell by…
After having surged in the second half of 2021 and early 2022, the Atlanta Fed’s Wage Growth Tracker peaked in mid-2022 and has since been on a general downtrend. The latest reading of 5.0% in January is a continuation of this process, marking the lowest pace…
The disinflation to date has been benign because it has come almost entirely from improving supply. But the supply-side tailwind has exhausted, so the last mile of the journey to 2 percent inflation will be the hardest, especially in the US and the UK. We discuss the investment implications. Plus, we highlight an interesting sector pair-trade.
As expected, the Reserve Bank of Australia kept the policy rate unchanged at 4.35% on Tuesday. The updated economic forecasts show a downward revision to the growth outlook for this year versus the previous round of projections released in November. The…
Although our base case remains that a continuation of the disinflation process will allow policymakers to pivot to rate cuts this year, we continue to monitor risks to this outlook. On this front, some key indicators have recently moved in the wrong…