We revisit the theme of China’s procurement of natural resources on a massive scale, and its impact on commodity markets. Matt Mirecki and Cedric Chehab discuss the sustainability of Chinese strategic stockpiling of metals and grains in light of persisting over-capacity in the economy. Cedric further explains why his outlook for the general commodity complex [Read more...]

Foreign portfolio investment started to return to Brazil in March, following six consecutive months of portfolio investment outflows, in which a total of US$23bn fled the country, triggered by the Emerging Market-wide sell-off in September 2008.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="432" caption="Brazil – Foreign Portfolio Investment (US$mn) & Bovespa Index"][/caption]

Indeed, the March-June 2009 period coincided with the [Read more...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia assembles one of my favourite data series: the State Coincident Indexes. These give us an idea of how individual US states are performing economically. I’ll let the Philly Fed do the talking here:

‘The coincident indexes combine four state-level indicators to summarize current economic conditions in a single statistic. The [Read more...]

Among the less noticed business news stories to have emerged over the past 48 hours were reports that North Korea recently opened its first American-style fast food restaurant, Samtaeseong, in Pyongyang, and plans to open further branches in future.

If this had happened in any other country, it would probably not merit any attention. But this [Read more...]

With global equity markets pushing through key technical levels and international investor confidence rising, certain sub-Saharan African (SSA) currencies have caught my eye. Aside from tentative improvements in macroeconomic fundamentals, many currencies offer high interest rates, which are likely to attract capital inflows on the back of increasing global risk appetite. Perhaps more importantly, several [Read more...]

Three months ago, Justin Patrie, Head of Emerging Europe at Business Monitor came onto the podcast to discuss Central and Eastern Europe. At the time, very weak Q408-Q109 economic data suggested a deep macroeconomic crisis, with the level of contraction unprecedented in the post-Soviet era. Since then, though, global market and macro sentiment has [Read more...]

Given that swine flu first reared its snout in Latin America, it’s perhaps not surprising to know that this region has been hit harder than most by the pandemic. Prompt action by the Mexican authorities to stem the virus spreading have already led my colleagues at Business Monitor to downgrade the country’s 2009 GDP growth [Read more...]