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]
As the Latvian government proposes a bill to change mortgage regulation to ease the debt burden on households, Bruce Jeffery argues that the country may be one step closer to eventual devaluation of the currency peg.
One of the key themes I have been examining over at businessmonitor.com is the downward trend in UK rates. Just two days ago, I ran charts very similar to these showing the falling differential between UK and US yields, and today’s 150bps cut in the Bank of England’s key policy rate to a 53 year… [Read more]
