Lessons learnt from Q1 collapse in global GDP
Global GDP growth, in year-on-year terms, slowed to -2.7% in Q12020 from +3.1% in Q4 2019 and in quarter-on-quarter terms to -4.5% from +0.6% in Q4, based on growth rates in 14 major economies accounting for close to 90% of world GDP. Global GDP growth in Q1 was at its wea… Become a member […]
What next for Asian currencies
Asian currency performance update – Moderate weakness in absolute and relative terms Asian currencies, bar the safe-haven Japanese Yen and Philippines Peso, have come under greater pressure this week as the number of reported coronavirus cases in China (and now 23 other countries) and reported deaths in China has increased (see Figure 1). […]
Asian currencies showing some viral resistance
Acceleration in spread of novel coronavirus On 31st December 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) was alerted to several cases of pneumonia in Wuhan City in the Hubei Province of China. The virus did not match any other known virus. On 1st January Chinese authoriti… Become a member to read the rest of […]
Lack of US market & macro volatility both reassuring and troubling
US market and macro metrics stable…with the exception of flying equities The metronomic rise in US equity indices to new record highs, spurred in part by the recent detent in US-China trade relations, is understandably making the headlines. The S&P 500, which yesterday breach… Become a member to read the rest of this article
What you may have missed and why it matters
Financial-market post-mortems for 2019 are out and the bottom line is that the trade was to be long pretty much everything – including US and global equities, bonds and commodities (bar natural gas) – but short equity and FX volatility. Trading FX last year was indeed an exerci… Become a member to read the […]
Early Christmas for (still weak) global growth
There is a growing consensus that global economic growth will slowly recover in 2020, particularly in the second half of the year. We made this prediction nearly four months ago in Central banks to the rescue…with a lag (27 August 2019), pointing to the positive, lagged impact of central bank rate cuts on global GDP […]
Room and need for more central bank rate cuts
Central banks across the world have been cutting their policy rates in unison since early May, in line with our forecast back in January that “policy rate cuts, which have all but disappeared since last Spring, may yet resurface in the second half of 2019 (see Forecast Update: Brexit, FX, central banks & GDP growth, […]
“Currency wars” not central banks’ end-game
Not a day passes without the media and US President Trump pointing the finger at “currency wars” and “competitive devaluations”. The thrust of the argument is that central banks across the world, in a “race to the bottom”, are cutting policy rates and in the case of the ECB resuming QE, in order to weaken […]
Central banks to the rescue…with a lag
We have consistently and correctly forecast since October that the 60bp increase in the global central bank policy rate in 2018 would, with a lag, contribute to global GDP growth falling below 3% in 2019 and to lower inflation and that as a result “policy rate cuts, which had all but disappeared since Spring 2018, […]
4X Global Research Forecasting Track Record
4X Global Research (4XGR), a fully independent yet well connected London-based research consultancy, has since its inception in 2016 consistently posted a strong forecasting track record for currencies, rates as well as macroeconomic and political developments which is detailed below. This underscores its rigorous top-down approach, rooted in both a detailed qualitative assessment of emerging […]