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In December, more than half of U.S. restaurants had trouble paying their rent, according to data service Alignable, compared to less than a third a year earlier.

The U.S. government ran $85 billion worth of red ink last month, the treasury department reported. A year earlier, the deficit was $21 billion.

Analysts at the four biggest U.S. banks expect rising interest rates to drive the American economy into a recession this year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In December, the rate of U.S. inflation slowed to 6.5 percent from November’s 7.1 percent, marking the Consumer Price Index’s (CPI) sixth consecutive month of decline after peaking last June.

Equity markets bounced last week, partly on news that inflation continues to slow. That is persuading a growing number of money managers that the U.S. Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates this year.

As we note in the ECONOMIC UPDATE section of this week’s Trends Journal, the bet on The Streets is that the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates only a quarter of a percent on 1 February. Slower growth in consumer prices and wages has made it almost certain that the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise its key interest rate by only a quarter point next month, after raising it three-quarters of a point four times last year and by a half point twice, according to the Financial Times.

After tanking last year, bonds are poised to record their best January performance since 1991 as investors see inflation declining across the world’s leading economies, the Financial Times reported.