Fund managers have continued to downgrade forecasts for global growth. The end of Q3 consensus forecasts for 2018 has been reduced to 3.2% from 3.4% in Q2 and for 2019 down to 3% from 3.2%. The most significant changes were…
Read more...
The exponential growth in China’s economy over the past forty years has brought hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens out of poverty and advanced the Chinese people’s standard of living and personal wealth. This has been done through a command…
Read more...
In early October, the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell expressed his delight that the US economy was going very well by saying, ‘We are enjoying a remarkable set of economic circumstances’. The US economy saw jobless figures fall to 3.7%…
Read more...
In terms of the scale of public debt, Italy has been the elephant in Europe’s room for a long time. The Italian national debt is now €2.5tn which is 132% of Italy’s GDP and making Italy highly vulnerable to economic…
Read more...
The US administration’s sanctions against Iranian oil exports came into force on the 4th November. This includes sanctions on corporations buying Iranian oil or trading with their central bank. Without a waiver agreement, foreign oil firms will face the risk…
Read more...
The Shanghai Composite Index of the largest 300 companies (CSI 300) has had a very poor 2018 having fallen 24% up until November including an 8% drop in October. These equity losses can be accounted for by the impact of…
Read more...
Since October’s heavy correction, it is becoming clear that while investors realise the world is slowing and expectations for growth are diminished, there are still opportunities for growth. In fact, some markets seem to be good value because of the…
Read more...
2018 has not been a good year for emerging markets. The Indian rupee slipped 15% against the strengthening US dollar and Indian stocks have endured a period of significant volatility. The BSE Sensex Index hit 39,000 points in August only…
Read more...
Mergers and acquisitions activity in 2018 are set to be the highest on record with US$3.3tn of deals conducted by October 2018. A series of mega deals have contributed to this record. This level of M&A is fuelled by high…
Read more...