In recent times, the economic landscape has presented an array of challenges that have profoundly affected the business community.
Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT – Jan 16 2024
BURBERRY CUTS 2O24 GUIDANCE
The British firm Burberry became the latest purveyor of luxury goods to cut its 2024 outlook. It did so after a disappointing holiday sales season.
SAUDI ARABIA CUTS OIL PRICES FOR FEBRUARY
Saudi Arabia has cut its oil price for February, a month traditionally slow in demand, as the world enters a supply glut due to strong production in the U.S. and a worldwide economic slowdown.
SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GETTING BIGGER
The “Bigs” are getting back into “Big” business. As we have noted when the Central Banksters started to rapidly raise interest rates, the decade’s long merger and acquisition spree slowed down dramatically.
SPOTLIGHT: CHINA’S ECONOMIC STRUGGLE
The world’s investment managers no longer see Chinese stocks as essential to their portfolios, according to Bloomberg’s analysis of 14 U.S. pension funds.
SPOTLIGHT TOP TREND 2023: OFFICE BUILDING BUST
Years of overbuilding and the transition to remote work has raised the U.S. national office vacancy rate to 19.6 percent, compared to 18.8 percent a year ago, Moody’s Analytics reported, the highest since at least 1979, the year Moody’s began tracking the data.
ARGENTINA’S INFLATION PASSES 211 PERCENT AS MILEI ENACTS TOUGH MEASURES
Argentina’s 2023 inflation rate was 211.4 percent, Bloomberg reported, beating Venezuela’s 193 percent for the year’s worst price spike.
EUROZONE’S ECONOMY SHRANK IN FOURTH QUARTER, ECB OFFICIAL SAYS
The Eurozone’s economy probably contracted again in 2023’s fourth quarter after shrinking in the third, Luis de Guindos, vice-president of the European Central Bank (ECB), said in a 10 January speech.
GERMANY’S FACTORY OUTPUT FALLS FOR A SIXTH CONSECUTIVE MONTH
In November, Germany’s industrial production edged down 0.7 percent from October, a month in which output fell 0.3 percent from September.
AFRICA WILL LEAD ECONOMIC GROWTH IN 2024, IMF SAYS
Among the world’s ten fastest-growing economies this year, six will be in sub-Saharan Africa, the International Monetary Fund said in a report last week.