Next year’s US fiscal deficit will be roughly equivalent to the entire GDP of its northern neighbour. Electoral considerations will delay any serious attempt to reduce it – but action here can’t be postponed forever. On Monday, President Obama unveiled the White House’s $3.73 trillion budget for fiscal year (FY) 2012, setting the stage for [...]
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Trade The UK recorded a trade deficit of £9.25bn in December; the largest deficit since records began way back in 1980. This was a result of a 3.5% increase in imports (from November) and only a 1.5% increase in exports. A geographical breakdown shows that the trade deficit with EU countries narrowed by £0.1bn, but [...]
Filed under: Economics, Exports, fiscal tightening, GDP, GDP forecast, monetary policy, Trade deficit, UK | Tagged: forecasts, growth, monetary policy, UK | Leave a Comment »
In America, strong consumer spending and net trade led to an acceleration of US GDP growth to 3.2% in the fourth quarter of 2010. The risks to our first quarter 2011 GDP growth forecast are now “on the upside”. Luckily, this time, we did not have any of the scary surprises from GDP releases that we [...]
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You can’t blame it all on the weather. Snow and sleet don’t fully explain poor recent UK economy performance. The UK economy suffered a shock 0.5% contraction in GDP in the fourth quarter of 2010 – the biggest drop since the second quarter of 2009. Taken at face value, this was a dreadful figure, and [...]
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Don’t get too optimistic about aggregate euro area economic data. One economy is clearly in a class of its own. Recent data for the euro area as a whole have been pretty upbeat of late, even suggesting that growth in the region gained a bit of momentum towards the end of 2010. Performance of the [...]
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Many indicators point to stronger US GDP in the final quarter of last year. And let us hope that US surprises us again in 2011. The US ended 2010 in pretty good shape, reviving long-forgotten optimism about the world’s largest economy. Over the past few weeks, economic news coming from the other side of the [...]
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The Bank of England’s explanations for inflation consistently overshooting are becoming repetitive, and perhaps missing the point. Once again UK inflation has surprised on the upside, leaving economists dumbfounded and searching for answers. CPI came in at 3.7% for the month of December, far higher than the 3.3% recorded in November and above the 3.4% [...]
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What’s really happening with US employment? Here are two reasons why you shouldn’t be too worried by recent data. Last week’s US payrolls report turned out to be a bit sour – failing, as it did, to provide the “icing on the cake” that many economists had hoped for, in that it failed to replicate [...]
Filed under: Economics | Tagged: forecasts, macroeconomics, US | 1 Comment »
Kevin Gardiner is Head of Investment Strategy, EMEA
Greg B. Davies
Greg B. Davies, PhD, is Head of Behavioural Finance
Henk Potts
Henk Potts is Market Analyst
