Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT – Feb 21 2023

On 16 February, swarms of Lebanese citizens broke windows in two of the country’s banks and set tires alight on streets to protest the sinking value of the country’s currency, the Lebanese pound.

A quarter of white-collar businesses in London, England, are reducing their office space as their workforces go remote and another 18 percent are moving to shared or co-working locales, a Bloomberg Intelligence survey found.

Inflation’s pace slowed in January in Great Britain for the third consecutive month, easing back to 10.1 percent per year from December’s rate of 10.5 percent, the Office of National Statistics reported.

The average price for a home in Canada slipped 1.9 percent last month compared to December, running the string of declines to 11 consecutive months and dropping the average by 15 percent compared to January 2022.

European Central Bank (ECB) officials voiced differing views last week of the central bank’s next move on interest rates.

Business bankruptcies across Europe rose 27 percent in last year’s fourth quarter compared to the third as more companies that had survived the COVID War on government aid finally failed, the Financial Times said.

On 17 February, the benchmark price of natural gas in Europe dropped below €50 per megawatt-hour, its lowest in 18 months, as mild winter weather kept gas reserves plentiful amid adequate alternative sources of supply after Russia cut off virtually all gas exports to the continent.

The U.S. dollar’s value reached its highest in a month last week, forcing Egypt, Lebanon, and Pakistan to decouple their currencies from the dollar, effectively devaluing them.

This is week 29 of our reporting the long trend-line of layoffs that signal a further economic downturn in a country near you. Rising inflation and rising interest rate hikes are causing companies in many sectors to lay off employees. 

Developing nations began this year by selling almost $41 billion in bonds, with their equity markets riding the wave.