Mind The Gap

The World Bank has raised its global growth forecast in a report late on Tuesday to 3.2 percent this year from a June estimate of 3 percent. The Washington-based lender maintained its projection for the U.S. economy to expand by 2.8 percent, a one percentage point acceleration from 2013. The forecast for the richest nations […]

Overnight Japan’s official stats bureau published disappointing trade data in relation to Japan’s balance of payments. The $5.74 billion deficit for November was a recorded high and followed a pattern set out in previous months’ data. Naturally the huge government stimulus, by way of the asset purchase scheme, has severely weakened the yen causing imports

European markets have made a steady start since opening this morning with very little in the way of: fundamental policy, high impact news events, or rumours to excite analysts or investors. We’ve received the Italian industrial production number, coming in slightly below expectations at 0.3% up versus the previous month. Year on year the improvement

Early morning we received data suggesting that China’s stellar growth has been reduced slightly over recent months, the monthly trade surplus for China came in at $25.64 billion, missing the expectation of $30 bn by some distance. In other early news Australia’s economy delivered some positive news regarding house building, as new homes construction increased

France’s trade balance came in below expectations at €5.7bn this morning, worse than the €4.6 bn predicted by analysts polled and an increase on the €4.8 bn print from the previous month. Whilst not a huge miss the figure does add to the belief amongst many analysts that France still has some distance to travel

There has been frenetic activity in the UK retail sector this morning with several famous high street names announcing their Xmas period performance. As always some of them suggested that they’d had the “best ever Xmas in the history of the universe” but then, as we peel back the skin of the announcements, we find

In a nomination widely tipped to go ahead without much resistance the US Senate on Monday finally approved Janet Yellen as head of the Federal Reserve to take over from Ben Bernanke, making her the first female chief of the US central bank. She was approved in a 56-26 vote, with some senators, who had

The main high impact news events of this morning and overnight concerns Markit Economics’ PMIs. The UK’s services PMI fell unexpectedly in December, the reading fell from 60 to 58.8, a six month low. Now whilst the accompanying narrative from Markit continued to bolster and cheer-lead the UK’s performance, the fact is that the data

There were several data prints published on Friday morning concerning the UK economy that were extremely bullish. UK house prices have increased by circa 8.3% year on year according to one of the UK’s major lenders the Nationwide. Similarly mortgage lending came in just above the 70K for the month of December, a level not

Markit Economics have published a raft of manufacturing PMIs overnight and early morning. China’s print indicated a stall, whilst Europe’s indicated a gain and therefore a recovery in the overall manufacturing sector. The UK’s PMI fell by close on a point, suggesting that the UK’s recent advance may have reached a high water mark. France’s