The ‘epic crisis’ scenario which we outlined in a recent podcast appears to be in full swing. With much riding on the decisions policymakers make in the very near term, Business Monitor’s Chief Economic Strategist Tim Cooper and Head of Europe Country Risk & Financial Markets Mark Schaltuper believe that the probability of a Greek… [Read more]
In Business Monitor Online and Emerging Markets Monitor magazine this week, my colleagues in BMI’s Asia team assess the region’s vulnerability to the ongoing fiscal crises in the eurozone and renewed economic weakness in the US. Essentially, there are five possible channels through which a eurozone crisis could impact Asia: 1) direct losses on exposure… [Read more]
The EU-wide bank stress test results released on July 15 offered little reprieve for financial markets as concerns over the eurozone sovereign debt crisis continue to dominate. At the heart of the stress test scenario is the ‘adverse scenario’, in which the euro-area economy contracts 0.5% in 2011 and equity markets fall 15%, while banks… [Read more]
Brazil’s economy benefits from an almost perfect commodity mix, a rapidly rising consumer base and a government committed to improving the country’s investment climate, suggesting that it will continue to grow at a robust pace over the coming years. However, a reluctance by monetary policymakers to tighten credit conditions, for fear of hurting growth and… [Read more]
The Portuguese government finally caved in on April 6 and requested a European Union (EU) bailout. This was effectively a non-event, however. My colleagues and I had long expected the Portuguese to seek external assistance in Q2 2011, and judging by the muted reaction in the euro and bond spreads, the market had already priced… [Read more]
Although many of the more promising consumer industries in Latin America are reasonably easy to identify (e.g. food & drink and retail stocks), there are several other consumer-related sectors that I think have massive growth potential over the medium term. The first is airlines. Business and leisure travel is set to boom over the coming years,… [Read more]
The three Baltic economies of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia have been the biggest losers of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, contracting by 14.1%, 14.8% and a whopping 18.0% in 2009 respectively. After overheating in the preceding three years (Latvia grew on average 10.9% between 2005 and 2007), tightening global credit conditions towards the tail-end of… [Read more]
