Here are highlights from August 2018,
Our three most read posts in August 2018
Do economic fundamentals matter anymore? (Most read for a second month running)
London house prices have fallen most since 2009 but it is not what it seems
Why wouldn’t it be?
Here are highlights from August 2018,
Our three most read posts in August 2018
Do economic fundamentals matter anymore? (Most read for a second month running)
London house prices have fallen most since 2009 but it is not what it seems
The United Kingdom’s net worth was estimated at £10.2 trillion in 2017 or an average of £155,000 per person as per the Office for National Statistics. UK net worth more than trebled between 1995 and 2017, and much of this was from growth in the value of land. Land accounts for 51% of the UK’s net worth. The UK’s net worth rose by £492 billion from 2016 to £10.2 trillion in 2017.
We will be publishing a number of statistics for the United Kingdom (and the European Union) over the next few days in the run up to a major piece we will be publishing on the real economics of Brexit.
Montenegro, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are countries on the road to join the European Union.
The U.S. economy is doing great and is set to contribute 25% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) this year, its highest share since 2007. The rise of the U.S. dollar and increases in interest rates are squeezing emerging economics at an unprecedent pace. But it isn’t just emerging economies that are feeling the squeeze, Europe has its problems with Italian debt (and yields), the Australian dollar which has long been considered a growth asset has been falling this year and elsewhere trade worries and rising oil prices are having a big impact on other nations. Even German factory orders are the weakest in years as the U.S. is truly taking back economic leadership.
The S & P 500 has had a stellar run of nine and a half years of gains closing at a new high in the week gone by. It is up 300% since the 9th of March 2009 when it hit a multi-year low in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Even considering the time post the end of the last U.S. recession, the S & P 500 has outperformed every major financial metric by a big margin.
U.S. trade with the world has grown despite tariffs and tariffs rhetoric in the first half (January to June) of 2018. There is one point of view that trade grew to avoid tariffs before they were implemented which might be partially true. Here are the key takeaways and the dataset,
Canadian household credit growth is slowest since 2001 with Household credit (Annualized 3-month growth rate) growing at 2.98% and Household Mortgage credit (Annualized 3-month growth rate) growing at 2.85%.
The media has recently been writing about an apparent house price crash for UK house prices but it isn’t that bad. We wrote in May that UK house sales and house price growth are slowing, the on the ground situation hasn’t changed since and the newly available statistics support that.
Continue reading “London house prices have fallen most since 2009 but it is not what it seems”
Interest Rates globally are changing (in both directions) at the fastest pace ever in the history of the modern central banking system. Nearly half of the countries in the world have cut interest rates while the other half have hiked them in the past 6 months. The average change for countries with a change in interest rate has been +0.22% in the past 6 months. Take Argentina and Turkey out and the average (global) interest rate has actually fallen.
Continue reading “Interest Rates globally are changing at the fastest pace ever”
We will be publishing a number of statistics for the United Kingdom (and the European Union) over the next few days in the run up to a major piece we will be publishing on the real economics of Brexit.