Summary for the 7th of March 2019


The latest interim economic outlook was released by the OECD yesterday, where it had revised and set forecasts for the G20 countries. The OECD expected the global economic growth to be 3.3% this year and 3.4% next year. This was a downward revision from the previous outlook in November, the OECD was referring to the ongoing trade tensions to be one of the factors affecting the economic growth. The downward revisions were particularly significant for the euro area, notably Germany and Italy, as well as Canada and the UK.

According to the OECD, the GDP for the eurozone was expected to only be 1% this year, for the UK, the GDP was expected to be 0.8%. These were significant adjustments of -0.8% and -0.6% , respectively, far below what the market had expected (Bloomberg forecasted 1.4% growth for both). For the US, the forecast was still high ,with a forecast growth of 2.6% this year and 2.2% next year.

The OECD also downward adjusted the forecasted growth of most of the emerging markets this year, the growth was expected to still be high for China (6.2%) and India (7.2%).

The US trade deficits increased to a record high level of 59.8 bn. dollars in December.

Fed Beige Book shows a slowdown at the beginning of 2019 due to government shutdown.

The Bank of Canada keeps its key interest rate target unchanged of 1.75% . The Bank of Canada has increased the interest rate target 5 times since July 2017, where the last increase was in November. It has signaled that there is a rise in uncertainty about the timing of future rate hikes.

Indices for 7th of March.
Dow: -0.5% (6th of March)
S&P 500: -0.7% (6th of March)
Nasdaq: -0.9%(6th of March)
Nikkei: -0.8%  (7th of March)
Chinese indices: -1.4% (7th of March)
STOXX Europe 600 Index: -0.43% (7th of March)

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