Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT

The spike in demand in recent weeks for raw materials from iron ore to sugar may signal the start of a commodities “supercycle,” in which prices for items rise steadily while supplies remain scarce, traders and analysts say. Steady demand from Chinese factories, government stimulus spending, a $2.3-billion U.S. infrastructure project, a greening world economy,...

Office landlords in one of the world’s priciest real estate markets are seeing companies scale back their leased spaces as working from home becomes the new normal, adding to property owners’ existing woes wrought by social unrest, U.S.-China tensions, and the financial injury of 2020’s economic shutdown. Hong Kong denizens letting portions of leases lapse...

China’s economic output missed expectations in April, due in part to the worldwide shortage of computer chips, the Wall Street Journal reported. The country’s official purchasing managers index (PMI) in manufacturing slid from 51.9 in March to 51.1 last month; the service industry’s PMI drooped to 54.9 from March’s 56.3. Readings above 50 indicate expansion;...

Several of Europe’s largest banks have decided to permanently reduce business travel by as much as half from pre-pandemic levels, the Financial Times reported. The decisions to slash travel budgets were made as banks learned during the economic shutdown that business could be conducted effectively by long-distance, the FT said. The year of the pandemic...

Massive February storms in Texas and a 19 March fire at Japan’s Renesas Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. have left the auto industry facing more months without an adequate supply of the computer chips that cars now depend on for safety, information, and other crucial systems. Chip makers diverted production to home and office electronics during the...

As of 30 April, 875 initial public stock offerings raising at least $1 million each have been completed worldwide, easily surpassing the record 592 seven- or eight-figure IPOs in 2000 that marked the end of the dot-com craze, according to research firm Dealogic’s 26 years of data. The $230-billion value of this year’s deals surpasses...

During the week ending 25 April, Italy vaccinated 2.4 million citizens against COVID, 12 percent more than the week before; on 28 April alone, Germany jabbed 2.5 million people. EU officials expect 70 percent of residents in the union’s 27 countries to be inoculated by July. Europe has tied its hopes of economic recovery to...

As officials and analysts had predicted, first-quarter economic figures show that Europe entered a double-dip recession in the first three months of this year. A recession is defined as two or more consecutive quarters of economic contraction; a double-dip recession is two recessions separated by a brief recovery. Europe’s economy shrank 0.6 percent in 2021’s...