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%).

Apr 17, 2020

In the six weeks to April 15th, the Fed’s balance sheet has increased by an eye-catching USD 2.1 trillion to USD 6.3 trillion. However, there is still little evidence that this massive injection of liquidity into the financial system has managed to reach the real economy.

Apr 16, 2020

As more countries announce future end dates for lockdowns (France, the UK, Germany), already start curbing them (China, Austria and now Italy and Spain) all of them are outlining their plans to gradually restart activity. Yet one should keep in mind that not all countries are in the same boat; each faces different risks on the eve of deconfining.