Asking the Right Questions
Bank of England Inflation Report: Halloween Theme
In his latest inflation report press conference, Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England (BOE), struck a Halloween theme in his opening remarks. Since the last meeting he confirmed that “indicators across much of the advanced and emerging world have been moribund”, adding…
IMF downgrades economic outlook
There was a lot of hype last week around the IMF’s release of their latest World Economic Outlook (WEO), in which they downgraded their forecast of GDP growth for the world economy. Entitled “Legacies, Clouds, Uncertainties”, the IMF revised downward their projection for this…
Eurozone Inflation Falls Further in August
ECB president Mario Draghi must be thinking “why always me” as the latest economic data heaped more pressure on Draghi to wave his magic wand (perceived to be quantitative easing through the eyes of financial markets) and fix the ailing Eurozone economy. In particular,…
Weekly Market Recap: 25th August 2014
Market Recap The majority of the major equity indices closed in positive territory last week and demand for government bonds saw yields relatively unchanged, with the main central bankers keeping the party going last week. Germany’s DAX equity index was one of the standout…
When Bad News is Good News
Friday’s FT headline – “Stocks boosted by weak data” conveyed the general feeling in the markets that last week was another case of the ‘bad news is good news’, i.e. weak economic data will force central banks to keep monetary policy loose longer than…
Buy Irish Property, you can’t lose?!
“Your house will be worth 20pc more by 2017 – ESRI” read the headline of an article in the Irish Independent last week referring to a paper released by the Economic Social and Research Institute (ESRI) entitled Bubble, Bubble Toil and Trouble? An Assessment…
UK Economy Surpasses Pre-Crisis Peak in GDP
The UK economy grew by 0.8% in the second quarter, according to the preliminary estimate from the Office for National Statistics. This was in line with market expectations and marks the second consecutive quarter on quarter increase of 0.8%. Much of the headline news…
Weekly Market Recap: 28th July 2014
Market Recap Many of the major equity indices closed the week in positive territory, despite the brief sell-off on Friday. The decline in the German IFO Business Climate Index, for a third consecutive month, was blamed with the German DAX index and French CAC…
China Meets GDP Target: Boosted by Stimulus and Credit Growth
I suppose it is no surprise really that the official release from China confirmed that GDP growth met market expectations, expanding at a slightly faster than expected rate of 7.5%. Market participants, and it would seem the Chinese hierarchy, are not willing to accept…
Consensus Economic Forecasts: Continuously Over-Optimistic
Beginning the year the consensus outlook for global economic growth was more optimistic for 2014, to be driven by the high-income countries. This has not transpired as expected with the most notable weakness in the US, the world’s largest economy. Real gross domestic product…
