Apr 30, 2020

Today’s policy announcements were geared in particular towards easing liquidity conditions but left the job unfinished with regard to boosting the ECB’s ability to backstop Eurozone debt markets.

Apr 30, 2020

The Covid-19 crisis has hit the Eurozone economy like a meteorite. According to a preliminary flash estimate provided by Eurostat, Eurozone GDP declined by -3.6% q/q in Q1 2020 – the sharpest decline on record.

Apr 24, 2020

Germany has been the first major European retail market to lift country-wide restrictions on “non-essential stores” on 20 April, putting an end to a five-week mandatory closure of a majority of non-food stores. While the move is most welcome for store owners left with zero turnover but bills to pay, we believe the industry is far from out of the woods. Taking into account segment size, seasonality and restrictions, we estimate that this five-week closure of non-essential stores could have cost German retailers as much as EUR26bn in turnover.

Apr 23, 2020

Black hole economics. Lockdowns for more than half of the global population and GDP have hit the world like a meteorite, pushing the global economy into its worst recession since WWII.

Apr 22, 2020

We estimate that in Europe, household saving rates could increase by as much as +20pp to 36% on average in Q2 2020. This means EUR1.3tn of additional savings, or 10% of GDP. Total savings could peak at EUR2.3tn.

Apr 17, 2020

China’s GDP growth collapsed to -6.8% y/y in Q1 2020, down from +6.0% in the previous quarter. This is the first contraction since quarterly GDP started to be published, in 1992 and worse than consensus expectations (-6.0%), though better than our forecast (-9.0%).