US Budget Update Fundamentals Update as at 23 February 2014 by Lorenzo Beriozza Under current tax and spending laws, the CBO projects the federal budget deficit will shrink over the next few years, reaching a low of $478 billion (2.6% of GDP) in fiscal year 2015. However, several forces are expected to increase deficits later [...]
Swiss Referendum Fundamentals Update as at 13 February 2014 by Lorenzo Beriozza Last Sunday, the Swiss decided by a narrow margin to restrict "mass immigration". This should not have any impact on the economy in the short term. The renegotiation of agreements is also likely to be low-key in order not to jeopardise close economic [...]
US Cold Weather Fundamentals Update as at 11 February 2014 by Lorenzo Beriozza The challenge is to quantify the drag to economic growth and determine how it manifests itself in the high frequency data. Focusing on the winter months of December and January, weather can explain about a third of the deviation from the underlying NFP [...]
US Debt Ceiling Fundamentals Update as at 6 February 2014 by Lorenzo Beriozza The forecast is the Treasury will exhaust extraordinary manoeuvres on February 28, the settlement date of the end-of-month coupon auctions. The exhaustion of the federal government’s cash balance is likely to occur on the next business date, March 3, and thus the [...]
S&P 500 Fundamentals Update as at 5 February 2014 by Lorenzo Beriozza January saw a loss of 3.5%, the biggest one-month loss in the S&P 500 Index since May 2012. The main driver of this weakness seems to be sharp currency declines and accompanying stock market losses in several emerging markets, such as South Africa [...]
