Thanks to the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s war in Ukraine and resulting Western sanctions, at least half of the 19 countries sharing the euro currency will enter a recession, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said in a 27 October Euronews interview.
As we have reported, the value of mergers and acquisitions that companies announced during the first nine months of this year is down 34 percent during the same period in 2021, according to data service Refinitiv.
The chances of a U.S. recession within 12 months has risen from 50 percent last month to 60 percent now, according to 42 economists responding in early October to Bloomberg’s monthly outlook survey.
With inflation in Turkey galloping at 83 percent in September, the country’s central bank cut its key interest rate from 12 percent to 10.5, adhering to Turkish president Recep Erdogan’s insistence that low interest rates reduce inflation.
Germany’s manufacturers jacked prices for their products 45.8 percent in September, year over year, continuing the string of increases made in recent months.
Japan’s consumer prices, excluding those for fresh food, grew last month by 3 percent, year over year, the most at any time since 1991, aside from a blip in 2014 when sales taxes rose, Bloomberg reported.
Inflation in Britain reached 10.1 percent in September, rising from 9.9 percent the month before, as food prices jumped 14.1 percent, their fastest spurt since 1982, and negated the impact of fuels’ falling costs, the Financial Times reported.
The global copper inventory has fallen to 4.9 days’ consumption and will end this year at only 2.7 days, Kostas Bintas, co-head of metals and minerals at Trafigura, a major commodities trading firm, told the Financial Times Mining Summit last week.
Although Brent crude oil’s price has fallen about 25 percent from its high of $128 a barrel last March, oil importers are hard pressed to see much difference: the dollar has gained about 15 percent in value since then, forcing importers outside the U.S., including China, the European Union (EU), and India to still pay premium prices in their own currencies to settle their oil bills.
The world is headed into Dragflation: Declining economic growth and rising inflation.