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The Week That Will Be (22nd March 2020)

This week we will find out: How is global economic growth? – PMIs (Tues), US Jobless Claims (Thurs), UK Retail Sales (Thurs) How much monetary & fiscal stimulus will come in 2020? – BOE (Thurs) Will Trump win re-election? – Fiscal package promised Monday We already know: The world economy is in recession. It doesn’t matter about the…

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The Economist: Finance and economics articles summarised (20th March 2020)

The cash crisis Operating expenses (opex) like wages and rent for all of the non-bank S&P500 companies in 2019 was $2.6trn. They have $1.7trn in cash and liquid securities. This is unevenly distributed between them: Apple could last for six years but Edison International, only a week, see left-hand chart 1. They get cash by…

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It All Comes To Less Than Nought – Update

Tonight the UK Chancellor offered loan guarantees of £330bn for businesses, hot on the heels of Macron’s EUR 300bn for France. There is talk of over 1 trillion USDs in help to come from the White House, 

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The Economist: Finance and economics articles summarised (14th March 2020)

The cash question Corporate debt may well be an area of real concern, it has risen from 84% of GDP in 2009 to 92% in 2019, underwriting standards have slipped, two-thirds of non-financial corporate bonds in America are “junk”. The Economist did a “cash crunch stress test” in light of covid-19 and the oil price slump, if…

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The Week That Will Be (15th March 2020)

This week we will find out: How is global economic growth? – Retail Sales from China (Mon) & US (Tues); Germany ZEW (Tues), Australia Jobs (Thurs) How much monetary & fiscal stimulus will come in 2020? – Fed to cut 100bp (Weds), BoJ (Thurs) Will Trump win re-election? – It’s now 50-50; Democrat debate (Sun), Primaries (Tues) We…

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