China’s Dagong Global Credit Rating Co earlier this week released what it described as the first ever assessment of sovereign credit risks by a non-Western ratings agency. Dagong’s report covers 50 countries (20 in Europe, 17 in Asia, 2 in North America, 6 in South America, 3 in Africa, and 2 in Oceania) comprising 90%… [Read more]
Japan’s new prime minister, Naoto Kan, has been given a poisoned chalice to say the least. Although GDP is growing again, the magnitude of the country’s economic challenges is gargantuan: A fiscal deficit of around 10% of GDP A public debt burden of 200% of GDP An ageing and shrinking population Weak private consumption Consumer… [Read more]
By now, regular readers should know that while I generally like India’s long-term macro story, New Delhi’s public finances leave a lot to be desired. After years of budgetary mismanagement, the country is a notable EM outlier in its fiscal/public debt dynamics, and for this reason, the FY2010/11 (April-March) budget, presented last Friday, was so… [Read more]
Fiscal deficit management and debt sustainability are two vital economic themes right now, given that governments across the world have been boosting public spending to reinvigorate their economies. In this respect, two charts immediately grab my attention. These charts appeared in Business Monitor Online earlier today, and in BMI’s weekly Emerging Markets Monitor magazine. The… [Read more]
Japanese Government Bond (JGB) yields have been testing key technical levels over the past day or so. On Tuesday, the 10-year yield hit a five-month high of 1.48%, up sharply from 1.25% at the beginning of October. The yield failed to break higher on Wednesday, but I am watching resistance (or support in price terms)… [Read more]
Together with my colleagues at Business Monitor International, I have just put the finishing touches to a report titled Britain On The Brink: UK Economy Sliding Out Of The Global Premier League. Our forecasts are amongst the most bearish yet published: • Britain will suffer a far deeper recession than either the UK Treasury or… [Read more]