21/4/16: Economic Outlook: Advanced Economies

My article on economic outlook forward for the Advanced Economies is now out at the Manning Financial quarterly: https://issuu.com/publicationire/docs/mf_magazine_april_2016_web_19042016?e=16572344/35062140.

22/5/15: Expresso: E agora, Cameron?

Portuguese Expresso on UK elections impact on the economy, quoting myself on the subject:

Click on the image to enlarge

15/9/2013: A Surging... Floater...

You've seen the 'Euro area economy is surging ahead' headlines on foot of recent PMIs... and you have seen warnings on the accuracy of the indices (see http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/09/1092013-pmi-and-real-economy-goldman.html)... but what about levels?

Ugh... 'surging'?.. or maybe 'barely floating'?

25/7/2013: BlackRock Institute latest survey results for global economic outlook: June 2013

The latest summary of the global growth conditions from the BlackRock Investment Institute. Click on the chart to open larger version. I have highlighted Ireland on the chart.

Blue bars reflect consensus on current phase of economic development (for example, in Ireland's case, current phase is seen as being recessionary by roughly 25% of respondents to the survey). Red dot corresponds to 6mo forward expectation (in Ireland's case, 50% of respondents expect recession in Ireland to either continue or to present itself again in 6 months time).

Note: this is the view of surveyed economists and not the view of the BlackRock II. The chart is based on the "trailing 3 survey reports for the other regions we poll. In our first month of this initiative, we collected the views of over 430 economists from more than 200 institutions, spanning over 50 countries"

4/7/2013: Blackrock Institute Surveys: North America, Europe and EMEA: June 2013

Two charts showing most recent consensus expectations on North American, Western European and EMEA economies from the Blackrock Investment Institute panel of economists (note: these do not represent views of Blackrock).

Notice clustering of peripherals and France, as opposed to marginally better clustering of the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium and Eurozone.

Note Ukraine as the sick man of the region. Also note Slovenia and Croatia - two EU economies that are significantly under-performing the regional grouping.

4/7/2013: Blackrock Institute Surveys: North America, Europe and EMEA: June 2013

Two charts showing most recent consensus expectations on North American, Western European and EMEA economies from the Blackrock Institute panel of economists (note: these do not represent views of Blackrock).

Notice clustering of peripherals and France, as opposed to marginally better clustering of the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium and Eurozone.

Note Ukraine as the sick man of the region. Also note Slovenia and Croatia - two EU economies that are significantly under-performing the regional grouping.

6/3/2013: BlackRock Institute Economic Cycle Survey 03/2013

BlackRock Investment Institute has released the latest results from its Economic Cycle Survey for EMEA and North America & Western Europe.

Before looking at the results, note:

1. The survey represents the summary of the views of a panel of economists polled by the BlackRock Investment Institute, and not the view of the Institute itself
2. In some instances, survey covers small number of responses (see two tables below detailing the depth of coverage), with low coverage corresponding to survey results being indicative, rather than consensus-conclusive.

So core results for North America and Western Europe regions:

In effect, little change from the previous surveys for Ireland, which remains solidly decoupled in terms of economists consensus from the peripheral states (the latter are all clustered in the upper RHS corner, corresponding to both high expectations of continued recession and current indicator of the present recession). In the case of Ireland, it is obviously very hard to tell whether or not Ireland is currently in a recession. Both GDP and GNP changes q/q and y/y do not warrant official designation of a recession, but nonetheless the economy is running at well below its potential capacity.

Per chart above, it is clear that despite the Eurostat projections for 2013 growth, Ireland does not lead the Euro Area in terms of forward expectations for economic growth when it comes to the economists' assessment.

Now on to EMEA results:

Pretty much predictable weakening of Russian growth for 2013 is reflected in the above. Two other interesting points:

1. The weakest performing states in terms of current conditions and expectations are the ones with closest ties to (and membership in) the Euro zone;
2. Weak performance for the Ukraine is reflective of the country continued political mess and the lack of sustainable fundamentals in terms of the country orientation vis-a-vis its main trading partners (the contrasting reality of the private sector closely tied into the CIS and more precisely Russian markets for investment and trade, juxtaposed by the political re-orientation toward Europe).

Note: here are the tables detailing the extent of the survey coverage depth:

27/10/2012: UK Q3 2012 'Growthology'

So UK is out of the second-dip recession? But, seemingly not out of the Great Recession:

via Citi Research.

At this speed of a 'recovery' UK folks can look forward to a down-cycle peak-to-peak of 5.5 years this time around, as compared to 4 years in the 1930s, 3 1/4 years in the 1970s and 1980s and 2 3/4 years in 1990s.

Never mind... it was so all curable by the Olympics & the Jubilee... Or as Citi put it:
"The rebound from the Jubilee in Q2 probably added about 0.5% to Q3 growth, while the direct effects of Olympic ticket sales added roughly 0.2%, and the ONS notes that there may have been wider positive effects from the Olympics on service sector growth (and this is the sector which was much stronger than we expected). So underlying growth in Q3 may have been 0.2-0.3% QoQ. In our view, the underlying path of the economy has been fairly flat throughout the last four quarters, with erratic swings in individual quarters: GDP fell in Q1 and Q2, reflecting weakness in construction in both quarters plus the adverse effects on activity of the Queen’s Jubilee, and the Olympics plus rebound from the Jubilee played a major role in the positive Q3 figure. The more that Q3  benefited from temporary Olympics-related positives, the more likely that Q4 GDP growth will disappoint as that boost fades."