Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT

Blackstone Group, the largest owner of India’s office buildings, will spend $720 million to buy 3.5 million square feet of warehouse space and development sites that could sprout another 18 million square feet, the Wall Street Journal has reported. Blackstone has set its sights on online shopping’s growth in the country, the WSJ said. E-commerce...

The European Central Bank (ECB) will continue its bond-buying stimulus program unchanged and will leave it in place longer than the U.S. Federal Reserve continues its spending spree, bank president Christine Lagarde said at a 22 April news conference reported by the Wall Street Journal following bank officials’ monthly meeting. The bank will hold its...

As the company announced weakened first-quarter earnings, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger warned that the worldwide chip shortage will continue until companies increase their manufacturing capacity to meet renewed demand, which could take as long as two years, he said. Despite chip makers scurrying to increase production, the chip shortage created by consumer demand during the...

AMERICAN AIRLINES REPORTS WEAK FIRST QUARTER. The airline’s revenue for 2021’s first quarter was 62 percent lower during the first three months of 2019, year over year, the carrier reported, and carrying capacity – the number of seats available – was off 42 percent. The company expects to post a first-quarter loss of between $2.7...

As we have forecast, the 20th century was the American century – the 21st century will be the Chinese century. The business of China is business; the business of America is war. CHINA’S SPIKES 18 PERCENT IN FIRST QUARTER. China’s economy grew by 18.3 percent in 2021’s first quarter, compared to the same period a...

LVMH Moët Hennessy Luis Vuitton, the world’s largest purveyor of luxury goods, saw its sales soar 30 percent year over year during 2021’s first quarter and 8 percent above the same period in 2019 before the COVID virus was showing its effects. The figures were adjusted for variations in currency rates. The company’s revenues have...

The 19 Eurozone countries should spend an additional 3 percent of GDP over the next 12 months to spur their lagging economic recovery, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recommended in its latest Regional Economic Outlook for Europe, published on 12 April. The region’s recovery is being hobbled by slow vaccine delivery, resulting in continuing...

80,000 MORE U.S. STORES WILL CLOSE BY 2026, UBS PREDICTS. UBS, the Swiss banking and financial services giant, predicts that 80,000 more U.S. retail storefronts – about 9 percent of the remaining total – will go dark by 2026, with e-commerce taking 27 percent of shoppers’ dollars then, compared to 18 percent today. Most of...

As we have been reporting in the Trends Journal, Beijing will no longer take orders or follow rules set by Washington. (See our 23 March article, “CHINA TELLS U.S TO FU.”)  Following what we had noted, this is the front-page headline of today’s Wall Street Journal – Beijing’s Message to America: We’re an Equal Now...

Central banks around the world have pared back the amount of dollars they hold, reducing the buck’s share of worldwide foreign currency reserves to 59 percent in December, the lowest level since 1995, the International Monetary Fund reported. The figure equates to a 1.5-percent decline in 2020’s fourth quarter. The banks have increased their holdings...