Markets

1.  The swing in the pendulum of expectations back toward a mid-year Fed rate hike is one of the key developments that will shape the investment climate.  The data in the week ahead, including the broader measures of the labor...

Investors are having a tough time of things today.  Three issues have eclipsed the firming of expectations for a mid-year Fed hike.First, Greece's Tsipras remained committed to his campaign promises in a speech to parliament that keeps it in loggerheads...

China, like much of the developed world, faces slower growth and an ageing population. Africa in contrast offers the potential of ‘catch up’ growth and a growing young pool of low-cost labour, alongside plentiful natural resources. The economic prospects of...

Over the last week, Russia (+12.2%), Hungary (+7.2%), and UAE (+6.3%) have outperformed in the EM equity space as measured by MSCI, while Turkey (-4.0%), Hong Kong (-0.8%), and the Philippines (-0.2%) have underperformed.  To put this in better context,...

The European Central Bank (ECB) symbolises the strange mix of politics and technocracy that marks EU governance. The bank was pushed to centre stage by the Eurozone debt crisis and the unwillingness or inability of Europe’s national governments to come...

President Barack Obama’s recent visit to India will kick-start stalled negotiations on a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) between the US and India that has been under sporadic discussion since 2008, aimed at facilitating greater cross-border investment flows. President Barack Obama’s...

Vietnam has recently upped its diplomatic efforts to strengthen relations with major powers by signing comprehensive and strategic partnership agreements. The underlying diplomatic philosophy is to create interdependent relations with as many major powers as possible, while avoiding taking sides....

Few countries have done so well out of China’s belated economic awakening as Australia, which has sated much of the People’s Republic’s voracious appetite for overseas iron ore and metallurgical coal. Supply struggled to keep pace with demand and the...

The main story today is not that the ECB will no longer (as of February 11) accept Greek government bonds as collateral and that Greek banks can have access to the national central bank via the Emergency Lending Assistance.  That...

Two things stand out about the economic recovery in Britain. One is the sluggish growth in real wages. The other is the sluggish growth in productivity. That the two phenomena have coincided is no accident. Low real wages, by eroding...

The Planning Commission is dead: long live the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI).The role and remit of India’s new planning institution has been under debate ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address announced the demise...

For years, Chinese officials and foreign analysts have been obsessed with China’s GDP growth figures. There has been a widespread belief that if GDP growth dips below 8 percent, there would be massive upheaval. This widely held perception turned out...

Indonesia’s ‘oil bonanza’ is now over. It ceased to be a net oil exporter and became a net importer in 2004. Indonesia currently produces only slightly above 800,000 barrels per day while the consumption level is about 1.4 million barrels...

Waning risk appetite along with growing uncertainty in Europe about Greece have set up emerging markets for a difficult week. In addition, the wave of monetary policy easing and expectations for further easing by EM central banks has removed another...

The bull case for the US dollar rests on two legs. The first is that the policy response to the crisis has produced superior economic results in the US that would lead to the Fed raising rates later this year....