Mark Schaltuper, Head of Europe analysis at Business Monitor International, is joined by Justin Patrie, Head of Country Risk and Financial Markets, and Jean-Paul Pigat, Head of Middle East and North Africa analysis, to identify some of the key sources of risk to the global economy.
Although equities sold off in the wake of US Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s comments to the International Monetary Conference in Atlanta, my colleagues and I see little evidence of any change to the Fed’s overall outlook. Bernanke reiterated the FOMC’s expectations that higher headline inflation would prove a transient phenomenon; that the labour market was… [Read more]
There are big question marks over the current policy advocated by the Turkish central bank, which despite stellar economic growth chose to cut interest rates to stem the flow of ‘hot money’. With consumer credit growing at over 40% y-o-y in late May, and inflation beginning to rear its head, we ask Chris Graham, Europe… [Read more]
The dichotomy in global growth stories became clearer this week. China and Singapore published above-consensus Q1 2011 growth figures (real GDP growth rose by 9.7% y-o-y and 23.5% q-o-q annualised, respectively), while BMI revised down its expectation for the same quarter in the US down from 3.5% to 2.3% with downside risks, and for 2011… [Read more]
Helped by a 25bps hike in eurozone interest rates to 1.25% on Thursday, the euro has broken through US$1.4300/EUR to trade at a 14-month high of US$1.4441/EUR at one stage on April 8, in line with BMI’s bullish view of the currency. In fact, my colleagues and I envisage further short-term gains to our upside… [Read more]
BMI‘s Asia Research Team has identified two currencies – the Singapore dollar and Indonesian rupiah – which it believes will outperform others in the region. Essentially, we prefer currencies with robust current account dynamics and clear indications by the central banks that currency strength is preferred to curb rising consumer price inflation. The SGD and… [Read more]
In line with the view that Business Monitor Online promoted on March 3, euribor futures have traded much lower on the back of European Central Bank (ECB) President Jean-Claude Trichet’s hawkish comments on monetary policy. Most notably, he said that a rate hike in April was possible. Indeed, the June 2012 contract broke key support… [Read more]
