Higher interest rates, an uncertain global economy, and the banking crisis conspired to whack the number of mergers and acquisitions by 45 percent in this year’s first quarter, compared to the same period in 2022, giving the M&A market its weakest start to a year since 2013, the Financial Times reported.
About 27 percent of low-income countries have been shut out of the bond market as the banking industry’s chaos has left investors shunning risk, especially in the form of high-yield debt, the Financial Times reported.
In March, the Eurozone’s consumer price index fell to 6.9 percent from February’s pace of 8.5 percent. It was the lowest reading in more than a year and beat The Wall Street Journal’s estimate of 7.1 percent.
The world oil market was stunned on 2 April by OPEC+’s announcement that it will cut its daily output allowance by about 1.16 million barrels, bringing the total of recently announced cuts to roughly 3.66 million barrels or about 3.7 percent of global production, Reuters calculated.
This is week 34 of our reporting the long trend-line of layoffs that signal recession in a country near you.
In January, the U.S. median home selling price slipped 2 percent from December, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index.
In February, the number of dollars consumers spent rose only 0.2 percent, year on year, down from a revised 1.5-percent bump in January, the U.S. commerce department reported.
As multiple crises roiled the Western banking industry this month, investors yanked money from bank accounts and stashed it in money market funds.
The Kremlin last week updated its 2016 foreign policy doctrine and made several noticeable changes, including identifying the U.S. as its main threat while stating that it is on a “unique historical mission.”
Saudi Arabia is continuing its shift from the West after its cabinet last week approved the move to become a dialogue partner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which was set up to rival the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO.