Tag Archives: Macroview

Macroview ECB keeps holding pattern, but we expect an extension of bond purchases in December Nothing in today’s ECB press conference challenged our view that quantitative easing (QE) will be extended at the bank’s next policy meeting on 8 December. We continue to expect the bank to use this meeting to announce a six-month extension of its QE programme beyond March 2017, with monthly asset purchases maintained at their current pace of EUR80 bn monthly, resulting in EUR480 bn in extra asset...

Third-quarter data leads us to revise up our growth forecast for this year to 6.7%, but forecast for 2017 remains unchanged at 6.2%. The latest data releases confirm our view that the Chinese economy is stabilising for the moment and that growth is on track to meet the government’s target of 6.5%-7% in 2016. The strong Q3 GDP reading leads us to revise our full-year GDP forecast for China to 6.7% from our previous forecast of 6.5%.Recent Chinese data releases prompt several...

Banks see QE and negative deposit rates as contributing to lending volumes—but also hurting their net interest income. Released on 18 October, the ECB’s third-quarter Bank Lending Survey– the first one to fully capture the effects of the 23 June Brexit referendum – remained broadly consistent with improving credit conditions. The BLS is of special significance in the current environment where commercial banks remain under a lot of pressure from all sides, whether from regulation,...

Chinese exports declined in September, but strong construction activity means there is upside risk to our 6.5% growth forecast for 2016. Headline exports for China fell by 10% in September year-over-year (y-o-y), compared with a 2.8% drop in August. This significant downturn was partly due to a high base-year effect. The notable increase in Chinese exports in September 2015 (even after seasonal adjustments) makes the year-over-year comparison particularly unfavourable. In our view, the...

A suspension of bond purchases by the ECB in the event of downgrade would be huge risk to outlook. Ratings agency DBRS is due to issue an update of its rating for Portugal on Friday, 21 October. Among the four rating agencies used by the ECB, only DBRS still has an investment-grade rating for Portuguese sovereign bonds (OTs). Even a one-notch downgrade by DRBS would push its rating of Portugal down to speculative status, and would effectively render Portuguese sovereign bonds ineligible for...

Macroview While we expect no concrete action at this week’s policy meeting, we believe extension of QE is coming and bond scarcity issues will be addressed. We do not expect any new action to be announced at the ECB’s policy meeting on Thursday, but we do expect that the ECB will reiterate that the size of its asset-purchase programme and its duration are exclusively a function of the inflation outlook. We also expect that the bank will hammer home the message that it has the flexibility to...

Macroview Our forecasts for US GDP growth remain unchanged, and we continue to expect a 25bp rate hike in December, followed by two others in 2017. Core retail sales in the U.S. rose by ‘only’ 0.1% month on month ( m-o-m) in September, below consensus expectations. Moreover, the July number was revised down. The result was that core retail sales were almost flat (+0.3% quarter on quarter (q-o-q) annualised in Q3), much lower than the 6.9% rise seen in Q2. Nevertheless, we continue to believe...

Slowdown in job creation and uptick in unemployment should not deter Fed from raising rates in December. Non-farm payrolls in the US rose by 156,000 month-on-month (m-o-m) in September, below consensus expectations, while nonfarm payrolls in July and August taken together were 7,000 lower than previous estimates. All in all, this was a slightly disappointing report, in contrast with a string of strong US economic indicators published in recent days, including the ISM indices for...

With the UK set to start talks on leaving the EU, and with the country’s ability to attract funding to cover its current-account deficit uncertain, downward pressure on sterling is likely to continue. Sterling declined by roughly 6% against the US dollar within a few minutes on currency markets on 7 October. Whatever the reasons for the sudden plunge, and although there was a rapid (but partial) recovery in sterling’s value, it is quite worrying to see a major currency moving so much...

The ISM indices signal a broad-based upturn in US economic activity and are consistent with our forecast of GDP growth of 2.5% in the third quarter. Figures released at the beginning of October revealed that the US ISM Manufacturing index rose to 51.5 in September from 49.4 in August, above consensus expectations (50.4). The ISM Non-Manufacturing ISM index posted its largest month over month increase on record, rising to a solid 57.1 in September from 51.4 in August.Forward-looking...