After the Covid-19 lockdowns disrupted global supply chains and put the concepts of supply-chain resilience and reshoring on every policymaker’s lips, we decided to check the pulse of companies in the U.S., the UK, France, Germany and Italy.
Recent monetary developments in the EMU are a reminder that it is simplistic and therefore risky to sum up the fuzzy concept of liquidity with QE as if it was the alpha and omega of monetary phenomena.
Household confidence will play a key role in France's economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. But unlike consumption, confidence never recovered to its pre-crisis level even when the first lockdown was lifted. The confidence recovery could only gain traction as of Easter 2021, under the hypothesis of a larger scale vaccination campaign being implemented and continued fiscal support from the government.
Household confidence will play a key role in France's economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. But unlike consumption, confidence never recovered to its pre-crisis level even when the first lockdown was lifted. The confidence recovery could only gain traction as of Easter 2021, under the hypothesis of a larger scale vaccination campaign being implemented and continued fiscal support from the government.
French and German savers have many things in common: Their level of financial assets per capita is similar and its development over the last decade has been almost identical.
Global public debt will hit an all-time high in 2020 and this won’t be without consequences for debt sustainability, particularly for the most fragile economies.
Traded companies have seen remarkable investment inflows even as prolonged Covid-19 lockdowns threaten corporate earnings and debt sustainability. These inflows have led to a substantial re-compression of corporate spreads, leaving most sectors trading close to January 2020 levels.
The first wave of Covid-19 lockdowns caused a stronger-than-expected profitability shock for most European non-financial corporates in H1 2020, with French and Spanish firms hit particularly hard despite generous policy support.
Restrictions on non-essential stores in France ahead of a critical holiday season are casting a shadow over nearly EUR18bn of retail sales normally made at year-end. In a particularly adverse yet realistic scenario where the sanitary situation demands store closures to last until the end of December the financial impact is not to be underestimated.
