Business Cycles
The Fed left the policy rate unchanged following its May FOMC meeting. It also announced it would slow the pace of quantitative tightening starting on June 1, from the current $60 billion per month to $25 billion per month for Treasuries redemptions, while…
In its latest report, BCA Research’s Global Investment Strategy service provides an update on its MacroQuant model. The overall equity score declined in April, finishing the month at the 29th percentile, which is enough to prompt the model to assign US…
The Chinese NBS non-manufacturing PMI came in at 51.2, below the previous month’s number of 53 and below expectations of 52.2. Moreover, the NBS manufacturing PMI also decreased to (a better-than-expected) 50.4 in April from 50.8 in March. Meanwhile, the…
Euro area inflation and GDP numbers were released on Tuesday. The preliminary harmonized core consumer price index came in at 0.7% on a month-on-month basis, a decrease from 1.1% in March. The preliminary year-on-year core CPI also decreased, clocking in at…
A few preliminary measures of German inflation for April were released on Monday. The month-on-month headline inflation measure came in at 0.5% an increase from last month’s reading of 0.4% but below expectations of 0.6%. Meanwhile the year-on-year version…
According to BCA Research’s Global Fixed Income Strategy service, a hard landing is the only way to solve the UK inflation problem. Sticky inflation and lingering inflation pressures have made the BoE’s job much more challenging. The UK economy weakened in…
The advanced estimates for US real GDP suggest that economic growth slowed meaningfully from 3.4% in Q4 2023 to 1.6% in Q1 2024 on an annualized basis, significantly below expectations of 2.5%. That said, the details of the report were less gloomy. While…
Equity markets reacted negatively to the preliminary Q1 US GDP on Thursday, with the S&P 500 shedding 0.5%. Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield rose 6 bps in response to the stronger-than-expected core PCE inflation print for Q1. Importantly,…
Results of Germany’s IFO business climate survey for April sent a positive message on Tuesday. The overall Business Climate Index increased from 87.9 to 89.4, beating expectations of 88.9. Assessments of both the current business situation (increased from…
The resilience of the US economy has led economists to consistently revise up their consensus real GDP growth forecast for 2024, which now stands at 2.4%, up from 0.6% in July 2023. Conversely, the 2024 consensus Eurozone growth estimate has been trending…