- Valuations point to subpar returns for euro area large-cap equities in the post-pandemic expansion.
- Equities in Spain and Italy are priced for average returns of around 10% in the next five years…
- …The corresponding numbers for German and French equities are just 5% and 2½%, respectively.
Claus Vistesen (Chief Eurozone Economist)Eurozone
Ms. Lagarde will stick to the signal that PEPP is likely to end in March, but Omicron is a big risk to this call.
The ECB's inflation forecasts will increase today; how close to 2% will they be for 2023 and 2024?
No rate hikes in 2022, but speculation about lift-off will intensify in the next six-to-12 months.
Claus Vistesen and Melanie Debono (Eurozone Team)Eurozone
- Supply-demand dynamics remain supportive for low yields in EZ government bonds...
- ...This balance will shift next year, but underlying support from the ECB will remain robust overall.
- The trend in German net debt issuance points to bund yields rising next year, to at least zero.
Claus Vistesen and Melanie Debono (Eurozone Team)Eurozone
- EZ Labour demand has surged and the supply-side labour market recovery has also been impressive...
- ...But in Italy the participation rate remains below its pre-virus level, trailing that in Spain.
- We expect the jobless rate in both to fall over the coming quarters, but Italy will underperform.
Claus Vistesen and Melanie Debono (Eurozone Team)Eurozone
- The green energy transition can be modelled as a sustained inflationary supply shock to the economy.
- In the extreme case, a rise in oil and gas prices could lift EZ inflation by 0.5pp between now and 2026.
- The price of CO2 emissions is rising; it could lift EZ inflation significantly over the next few years.
Claus Vistesen and Melanie Debono (Eurozone Team)Eurozone
- The Spanish government is continuing to support the recovery next year...
- ...But its GDP growth forecasts, reliant on hefty in- creases in investment, seem too high to us.
- The budget deficit is all but certain to be higher than the government’s 5% estimate next year.
Claus Vistesen (Chief Eurozone Economist)Eurozone
- EZ inflation expectations don't predict inflation, but they're not entirely without value either.
- Industrial production in France rose again in August; Q3 as a whole likely was decent.
- We think the PMI surveys are underestimating actual GDP growth in Q3, especially in Spain.
Claus Vistesen (Chief Eurozone Economist)Eurozone
- No one expects any changes at the SNB today, us included; we think policy will be on hold until 2024.
- The CHF will strengthen to the end of the year, but not enough to warrant significant FX intervention.
- Markets are worried about Evergrande—rightly—but contagion is limited, for now.
Claus Vistesen (Chief Eurozone Economist)Eurozone
- Our 2022 core inflation forecast signal that trouble is brewing for markets and the ECB.
- Core inflation will fall in Q1, but it will be back at just under 2% by spring, and through the summer.
- The ECB will stay dovish, but it will lift its inflation forecasts further; this will unsettle markets.
Claus Vistesen (Chief Eurozone Economist)Eurozone
- Don't fret the July plunge in EZ retail sales; Q3 as a whole will be OK, and services will do even better.
- The risk of new virus restrictions remains low, de- spite the uptick in new cases since the end of Q2.
- Consumers' spending in services will deliver strong growth in Q3 in the major EZ economies.
Claus Vistesen (Chief Eurozone Economist)Eurozone
EZ bond yields have been dragged lower as investors have abandoned the reflation trade.
Idiosyncratic factors will weigh on bund yields in H2, but we still see room for a rise to -0.3-to-0.4% in Q4.
Energy imports, and goods demand from Eastern Europe, are weighing on Germany's trade surplus.
Claus Vistesen (Chief Eurozone Economist)Eurozone
We're raising our 2021 growth forecasts for France, mostly due to technicals linked to recent revisions.
We now think German GDP will rise by just 2.7% in 2021, but the carry-over into 2022 will be solid.
Our new Q3 forecasts are broadly in line with the consensus; all set for a spectacular quarter.
Claus Vistesen (Chief Eurozone Economist)Eurozone
The macro-fundamentals are starting to turn against equities, but the policy put is alive and well.
Even if EZ equity earnings rise by 40% over the next year, as analysts expect, they still aren't cheap.
Political risks in the G7 are now concentrated in Europe; next year's elections in France loom large
Claus Vistesen (Chief Eurozone Economist)Eurozone
From an immunological perspective, variant risk is assessed on a spectrum—no variant is either completely resistant or susceptible to the vaccines—but for markets it is binary.
Claus Vistesen (Chief Eurozone Economist)Eurozone
Data on Friday showed that money supply growth in the Eurozone slowed further midway through Q2. Broad money, M3, rose by 8.4% year-over-year in May, easing from a 9.4% increase in April.
Claus Vistesen (Chief Eurozone Economist)Eurozone
