Business Monitor’s recent downward revision of its 2009 Hungarian economic growth forecast to -6.4% well reflects my view that the systemic crisis risks I have been highlighting since Q308 have morphed into the region’s core scenario. While small economies like the Baltics and frontier markets such as Ukraine have long been forecast to contract in… [Read more]
February was a bad month for the Mexican peso, hitting record low after record low, before closing out the month some 7% weaker than where it had started. Yet while Mexican Finance Minister Augustín Carstens assures us all that the currency is oversold, Mexico’s economic readings appear to be telling a very different story. In… [Read more]
Although everyone is talking about inflation right now, when we look at developed markets, we see reason to believe that 2009 in fact heralds a period of deflation. After all, when you strip out oil and food prices, there is not much inflation around. For example, core inflation in the US has remained steady at… [Read more]