Dec 4, 2019 | European Economy, UK
With global trade headwinds intensifying and many governments still reluctant to turn on the spending taps (for now), the burden of growth remains with the consumer. In the eurozone, consumer conditions appear relatively mixed. There is a divergence between soft and...
Nov 23, 2018 | European Economy
We have previously flagged Swedish property as both a precariously overvalued asset and a risk to systemic stability given the high degree of household leverage. The scale and intensity of the Swedish property bubble is reflected in the two charts below. In real terms...
Nov 16, 2018 | European Economy, Uncategorized
With Rome appearing to square off with Brussels over its contentious budget, BTPs have faced considerable pressure and bank stocks have been hammered. This is the nefarious doom loop: Italian banks own a large chunk of Italian government debt and, given the lack of...
Oct 19, 2018 | European Economy, UK
The politics of Brexit have enveloped the UK, and have negatively affected UK growth. However, as recent current-account data shows, things are less bad than originally feared. The top-left chart shows that net investment into the UK has continued to rise. The total...
Jan 19, 2018 | European Economy
Sentiment in Europe has soared to its highest level since 2001. However, in Europe as elsewhere, such lofty sentiment should be taken as a warning for markets, not a green light. As we can see from the top-left chart, previous peaks in economic sentiment have...
Jul 22, 2016 | European Economy
While most of the attention post-Brexit has been on the UK, we are far more concerned about Europe. Markets and the economy operate in a feedback loop, and the performance of European banks relative to the stock market points to a fall in lending ahead in Europe. ...
May 20, 2016 | European Economy, Monetary Policy
An ongoing theme we kept coming back to throughout 2015 in the eurozone is that monetary policy tends to either too hot or too cold for the core or periphery. The ECB’s attempts to fight deflation and reflate the periphery have fuelled increases in German mortgages...
Apr 22, 2016 | European Economy
One of the aims of loose monetary policy is to boost lending. The theory is lower rates and greater availability of liquidity will encourage lending and borrowing, which in turn will boost economic activity. Unfortunately, an increased supply of loans does not...
Aug 27, 2015 | Global Economy, Monetary Policy
Stock markets are experiencing a classic crash pattern. Volatility has spiked and sharp sell offs are often being followed by powerful rallies. As with previous crash patterns, we would expect markets to continue to gyrate wildly for around the next 8 weeks,...
