As I write this, Japan is once again in a funk. The yen has come ever so close to its post-WW2 high of JPY79.70/US$ seen in 1995, the Nikkei has touched 16-month lows, and now, the governing Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has become embroiled in an internal power struggle between Prime Minister Naoto Kan [Read more...]

US President Barack Obama’s formal declaration of the end of US combat operations in Iraq on August 31 is a good a moment as any to reflect on the war, the United States’ global position, and Obama himself.

Iraq War: Have The Goals Been Achieved?

First, let me address the Iraq War itself. There were several publicly [Read more...]

Notwithstanding the appreciation of crude oil prices during 2010, the frenzy of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the oilfield services sector continues. The bearish price environment of 2009 supported M&A activity on the back of attractive valuations and a desire to whittle down competition. During H1 2010, we saw a significant rise in such M&A [Read more...]

Looking at recent economic data and leading indicators, such as the Ifo Business Climate Index, I get the impression that the economic recovery of Europe’s largest economy knows no bounds. Indeed, after posting its fastest economic growth rate since re-unification (at 2.2%), my colleagues at Business Monitor International have upgraded their real GDP growth forecast [Read more...]

On this week’s Business Monitor Podcast we assess the outlook for global treasury markets. 2010 has thus far been a gangbusters year for treasuries and the implications for interest rate and inflation expectations has heavily reinforced our core macroeconomic outlook for a major downturn in global demand growth. Key questions addressed in the podcast include: [Read more...]

 

 Global Treasury Markets: How Low Can Yields Go? [19:14m]
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For some years now, social scientists and some economic historians have spoken about how cities are displacing nation-states as the most important actors on the world stage. The latest edition of Foreign Policy magazine carries an article along these lines, with the tag ‘The age of nations is over. The new urban age has begun’. [Read more...]

Infrastructure has shown resilience in the face of the economic downturn, and investment in the sector was used to boost aggregate demand during the global recession of 2009. However, governments around the world are now moving from stimulus to austerity. As the dust settles on the new initiatives used to attract private (rather than public) [Read more...]