South Korean economy shows sign of improvement

Oct 15, 2015 04:56 am UTC| Commentary Economy

The Bank of Korea held the policy rate at 1.5% in October, as expected. The BoK revised its growth forecasts for 2015 and 2016 marginally lower, cutting both 10bp, to 2.7% and 3.2%, respectively. The reductions were...

US October Beige Book cites modest pace of economic expansion

Oct 14, 2015 20:10 pm UTC| Commentary Economy

The Federal Reserves Beige Book, which contains an assessment of economic conditions from the 12 Federal Reserve districts through October 5, reported that economic activity continued to expand at a modest pace from late...

Troubling data from U.S questions economic growth

Oct 14, 2015 17:32 pm UTC| Commentary Economy

Economic data from around the globe was released today, nearly all pointing in a negative direction. Headline U.S. retail sales inched up a slight 0.1 percent while retail sales excluding autos dropped 0.3 percent and PPI...

Brazil’s retail sales indicate that Q3 consumption could be nearly 45% worse than estimated

Oct 14, 2015 16:53 pm UTC| Commentary Economy

At -6.9% yoy (-0.9% mom), August retail sales were much weaker than expected and the worst since early 2003. All of the major sales segments fell sharply - with the exception of medical care and cosmetics - as consumers...

The slowly disappearing US labor market slack

Oct 14, 2015 05:07 am UTC| Commentary Economy

After the decision not to hike in September, the FOMC statement repeated that the Committee would like to see some further improvement in the labor market and it would like to be reasonably confident that inflation will...

US retail and food services sales probably dipped in September

Oct 13, 2015 22:53 pm UTC| Commentary Economy

A tug of war between a price-induced drop in gasoline purchases and stepped-up consumer outlays on other goods and restaurant meals probably left retail and food services sales 0.1% lower in September, after a modest 0.2%...

Rounding out another strong quarter for Australia’s labour market

Oct 12, 2015 23:34 pm UTC| Commentary Economy

After two strong reports for July and August, when employment expanded at an average of 28k or 2.9% at an annualised rate, data for September is expected to be on the soft side with only a marginal increase in jobs of...