On this week’s Business Monitor Podcast, we revisit Central and Eastern Europe and our core macroeconomic strategy favouring Turkey and Poland. Has the region shaken off the structural imbalances which made it a focal point of crisis risks or is the positive convergence story no longer a core defining feature for the growth outlook? BMI’s… [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]
For all the doom and gloom surrounding European markets on the back of the Greek sovereign crisis and concomitant sell-off in euro and sterling, emerging market currencies in the region still look bid. Traditionally, when EUR/US$ has weakened, so too have benchmark central European cross rates such as PLN/EUR and CZK/EUR. However, this correlation has… [Read more]
On Monday, November 9, much of Europe will be celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the catalyst it provided for the collapse of Communism on the continent. BMI’s Justin Patrie explains the significance of this event for Emerging Europe, and what the outlook is for the next 20 years… [Read more]
BMI’s Justin Patrie cautions against premature excitement following the release of Q2 GDP data for several CEE and eurozone economies. Nevertheless, differentiation will remain key and the usual suspects (i.e. Turkey and Poland) continue to stand out as the ideal relative value play.
Despite the whopping 13.8% y-o-y real GDP contraction in Q109, I have stuck to my view that Turkey is among the best macro plays in emerging Europe. This strategic view has been formed out of three key premises: 1. The Turkish banking sector is among the most stable in Europe with among the highest growth… [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 improved,… [Read more]
