Business Cycles

After surging in H2 2021/H1 2022, the Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker has been on a general downtrend for over a year. The latest reading of 5.2% in October – albeit unchanged from September – is considerably below the peak of 6.7% just over a year ago.…

In the short run – i.e., over the current Northern Hemisphere winter – natural gas storage levels will be sufficient to balance heating and industrial demand with flowing supplies, assuming a normal winter in the EU and US, according to our colleagues at BCA…

According to BCA Research’s Counterpoint service, the ECB is the central bank that poses the lowest risk of repeating the mistakes of the 1970s and letting inflation expectations unanchor. One reason is the ECB’s inherited Germanic anti-inflation DNA. Even…

As expected, Euro Area retail sales continued to decline on both a month-over-month and a year-over-year basis in September. The 0.3% m/m drop is slightly below expectations of -0.2% m/m while the 2.9% y/y decline is not as bad as consensus estimates of -3.1%…

The US disinflationary trend remains intact. The core PCE deflator continued its downtrend in September, falling to 3.7% y/y from a peak of 5.6% in February 2022. Alternative measures of underlying price pressures such as the trimmed mean and median PCE…

US small-cap stocks have underperformed significantly this year. While the S&P 500 price index is up 14.0% year-to-date, the S&P 600 has lost 2.5%. However, this underperformance has not been a straight line down. Small caps benefited from a…

A Growing Monetary Policy Divergence Between Australia & Canada …

According to BCA Research’s Emerging Markets Strategy service, Indonesia's “window of opportunity” to transition to a lower real interest rate regime – without jeopardizing the currency stability – has closed. This opportunity had opened thanks to an…

Chinese trade data for October delivered a mixed message on Tuesday. On the one hand, the export contraction deepened to -6.4% y/y following -6.2% y/y in September and surprised expectations that it would moderate to -3.5% y/y. Yet on the other hand, import…

The Reserve Bank of Australia lifted the cash rate by 25 bps to a 12-year high of 4.35% on Tuesday, in line with consensus expectations. Governor Michele Bullock's post meeting statement underscored that although inflation is moderating, it remains too high…