Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT

IHS Markit’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for the U.S. service economy rose from 54.8 in December to 58.3 in January, the second-sharpest rise in more than five years, the market research firm reported. Ratings above 50 indicate growth; the higher the number, the faster the pace. In contrast, the PMI for Europe’s service sector slipped...

The Eurozone’s economy shrank 0.7 percent in 2020’s final quarter, contributing to the region’s loss of 6.8 percent for all of 2020 compared to 2019, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency. For the year, economic output dropped 8.8 percent below 2019’s in France, 8.3 in Germany, 11 in Italy, and 5 in Spain,...

ExxonMobil, the world’s second-largest oil company, reported its fourth quarterly loss in a row for the last three months of 2020, tallying a $22.4-billion loss for the year, the first negative year in the company’s 150-year history. The company’s stock lost more than 40 percent of its value last year, during which ExxonMobil was booted...

The U.K.’s central bank has told commercial banks to make needed changes to their processes and records systems to prepare for the country’s benchmark interest rate to dive below zero. However, that does not mean that negative rates are imminent, the bank added. A negative rate would mean that the central bank would charge commercial...

India’s government will seek to borrow $11 billion from capital markets over the next six weeks to initiate capital projects before the country’s fiscal year ends on 31 March, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in a statement reported by the Financial Times. The nation’s new budget raises capital spending to about $75 billion, up almost...

Governments in the Arab world must invest in technology and make economic reforms that accelerate recovery from the global shutdown, an official of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a public warning reported by the Financial Times. After the Great Recession, “it took the countries of the region much longer than the average emerging...

In a major policy reversal, the Cuban government will permit small, private businesses to operate in most sectors of its economy, state-run news outlets announced on 6 February. The list of permitted activities is being expanded from 127 to more than 2,000, the announcement said. The island’s economy has suffered for decades under tight government...

Italian landscapes from Tuscany’s countryside to Sicily’s dramatic hills have made the country a favorite site for luxury weddings and spawned a multi-billion-euro industry to host them. The pandemic and global shutdown have changed that. Over the past 12 months, an estimated 9,000 weddings for foreign couples have been canceled, according to Italy’s Confindustria business...

BIG BANKS SLASHING BRANCHES. In late January, TD Bank announced the closure of 81 of its 1,223 U.S. branches by April, joining KeyCorp, Huntington Bancshares, the Bank of Hawaii, and National Bank Holdings in shutting branches as deposits, withdrawals, and other transactions increasingly take place online. From March through May 2019, Wells Fargo saw a...

AIRLINES STILL IN A TAILSPIN. American Airlines reported a 2020 loss of almost $8.89 billion, JetBlue almost $1.4 billion, and Southwest Air $1.3 billion, its first annual loss in 48 years. The losses have continued into 2021’s first quarter.  Air carriers expect their fortunes to improve only when vaccines have been taken up by enough...