Debt Trends
The New York Fed Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit indicates that US household debt rose 1.1% q/q in Q1 to $17.7 trillion. Higher mortgage, home equity loan and auto loan balances drove the bulk of the Q1 increase, while credit card balances…
Chinese aggregate financing, a broad measure of credit, declined on a YTD basis, from CNY 12.9tr to CNY 12.7tr in April, disappointing expectations that it would grow to CNY 13.9tr. Moreover, new loan growth missed expectations (from CNY 9.5tr to CNY 10.2tr)…
Lending standards continued to tighten for most loan categories in Q1 2024. US banks reported tightening lending standards for C&I and CRE. For real-estate-backed loans to households, lending standards tightened further for Home Equity Line of Credits…
The IMF’s latest fiscal monitor report highlighted the dangers that rising sovereign debt alongside rising deficits pose to advanced economies. The United States, in particular, is at risk. The IMF projects that fiscal deficits in the US will stay above 3% of…
According to BCA Research’s Emerging Markets Strategy service, although certain Chinese industries and individual EM economies are growing briskly, overall EM growth will remain tepid, with risks skewed to the downside. The fiscal stimulus announced during…
The steepening of the yield-curve powered the outperformance of the S&P 500 Financials relative to the overall market since the spring of 2023 banking crisis. This sector returned 30.1% over this period, against 27.3% for the S&P 500. Our US Equity…
We assess where emerging markets debt is on a strategic and cyclical basis. We find it has benefited from local central banks boosting their inflation-fighting credentials and governments improving financial stability. As a result, EM debt is behaving less like a risk-on asset, changing the role it plays in a global portfolio. We also expand our asset allocation playbook by assessing how the asset class behaves across the business cycle. While EM debt is more than a risk-on play, we suggest investors stay cautious on a cyclical horizon.
China’s credit data update for January delivered a mixed signal on Friday. The CNY 6.50 trillion increase in aggregate financing beat expectations of CNY 5.60 trillion and marked a significant acceleration from CNY 1.94 trillion in December. Similarly, the…
The US Federal Reserve Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SLOOS) continues to show the impact of the Fed’s tightening cycle. Banks were still tightening lending standards for commercial and industrial (C&I), commercial real estate (CRE), home equity…
Results of the ECB’s quarterly Bank Lending Survey suggest that the tight monetary policy stance is still weighing on the Eurozone economy. Banks tightened credit standards for businesses and consumers further in Q4 2023, contributing to the substantial…