Datastream Chart Blog

Calls for bold monetary easing by freshly elected Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, have pushed down on the value of the Yen and fuelled a rally in Japanese equities. Refresh Chart   Edit Chart Anticipation of more aggressive monetary easing in Japan has pushed the Yen to multi-year lows against the US dollar and fuelled a [...]

Nonperforming loans at Spanish banks continued to rise in November, reaching a record high of €192bn, or 11.4% of all outstanding loans. Spanish lenders have faced the dual threat of slumping house prices and widespread unemployment. With joblessness set to rise further this year, they would be wise to brace themselves for a further increase [...]

China trade data for December pointed to pick up in momentum in the final month of 2012. Export growth outpaced import growth, which led to a rise in its trade surplus. This suggests that China’s long-awaited rebalancing has yet to fully take shape. Refresh Chart   Edit Chart China’s trade position improved in December as [...]

The pace of new job creation in the United States may still be underwhelming, but a look behind the raw data to the composition of unemployment statistics suggests that an improvement is underway. Refresh Chart   Edit Chart The US economy continued to create jobs in December albeit at a moderate pace, suggesting that employment [...]

US policymakers remain at loggerheads in attempting to find a resolution to the fiscal cliff. According to Fathom Consulting’s Global Economic Strategic Allocation Model (GESAM) the US would be plunged back into recession in 2013 if the fiscal cliff were to be enacted in full. Under current law a set of automatic tax hikes and [...]

This research note is provided by Fathom Consulting. All of the charts below and many many more, covering a range of topics and countries on both the macroeconomy and financial markets are available in the Chartbook to Datastream users at www.datastream.com. Alternatively you can access Fathom’s Chartbook at www.fathom-consulting.com. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won [...]

Many of the themes and issues that determined financial market returns in 2012 may well return for an encore in the new year. With only a little more than two weeks left to go in 2012, investors already are looking ahead to the new year, with all of its risks and opportunities. At AlphaNow, we [...]

The ECB will become the single supervisor for the eurozone’s biggest lenders, but boosting investor confidence likely will require more aggressive measures. Refresh Chart   Edit Chart As part of their efforts to instil confidence in the continent’s banking system, European leaders agreed a deal to make the European Central Bank (ECB) a single supervisor [...]

The Office for Budget Responsibility has cut back UK economic growth forecasts repeatedly, raising the spectre of fresh austerity measures. Refresh Chart   Edit Chart The Office for Budget Responsibility is starting to look like an organisation that is systematically disappointed by the performance of the UK economy. As this edition of Chart of the [...]

A quick look at the returns generated by various kinds of commodity investments this year (as measured by spot market prices) is a reminder of how tricky it is to capture outsize gains and how nearly impossible it can be for even the most skilled prognosticator to predict the most lucrative investment trends of any [...]