I think that that the ECB might be happy about the growth outlook, but inflation is still looking really subdued.
I think London's clearing system does work pretty efficiently, but there are issues related to the clearing of euro-denominated securities taking place in the jurisdiction beyond the ECB's influence that will arise once the UK leaves the EU.
It depends on a period of time that you are talking about. I think that in the long run it has a negative impact. I believe that the energy sector, especially alternative energy sources, hold tremendous opportunities for economic growth.
This is obviously the key question at the moment. We all hope that relations between Britain, the European Union and, of course, individual EU countries will remain cordial, though the negotiations are likely to be extremely difficult and complex, while there is a chance of tensions being raised and disagreements being voiced strongly at various points in time.
From the growth point of view, Brexit can affect the economy in two ways. In the near term, uncertainty from Brexit and rising inflation from the reduction in Sterling trade since the vote could cause a modest demand-side shock.
I do not think so, though it is mostly because the US is likely going to pick back up again. What we saw in the first quarter, and this is something we have seen over the past few years, is that the US has a relatively weak first quarter.
That is obviously not a simple question to answer for the reason that a reform of the financial regulatory system in terms of changing the Dodd-Frank needs to be done, but I do not think an overhaul is indeed necessary.
At this point, we agree that the Euro zone's economy is strengthening. We have recently revised our forecast for this year, though I think the key point here is that the ECB has not really seen any reasonable signs of an economic recovery.
No, I do expect the BoC to raise rates anytime soon, as there still are some downside risks that the Bank of Canada wants to make sure do not materialise, especially in the US trade policy.
Our base case scenario is that we are expecting a slowdown in the UK economy in 2017. If we ask what has been propping the UK economy up since Brexit, the answer would be the consumer spending story; we have seen consumption being fairly resilient since Brexit.
I do not think the economy really needs to outperform to make the Federal Reserve raise rates. If the economy evolves as expected, the Fed will be hiking interest rates.
At the moment, it is hard to say whether the energy industry is really going to surge forward thanks to Trump's regulations. Still, with relatively low oil prices, the industry is not going to receive more money regardless of any regulations the President might implement.
I do share this point of view because there is a strong negative correlation between real interest rates and the gold price.
I would not say that they are completely indifferent. The Business Climate Index did show an initial reaction to the Brexit referendum decision back in the middle of 2016; however, despite the political uncertainties, the overall global demand picture has actually brightened up over the last six to nine months.
To my mind, it is reasonable to believe that the ECB will proceed with the withdrawal from the loose monetary policy.
I think that there is a risk that Trump's policies could hurt economic growth in case there is an aggressive action on trade.
We think that growth will soften a little bit over the course of this year.
I do share this point of view, because, clearly, the US economy is at a different stage of the business cycle than the Canadian economy is.
I suppose that the current trend in consumer prices will improve in the nearest future; however, this improvement will be relatively modest given the fact that the base effect of oil price and the Euro exchange rate are not expected to rise a lot.
I assume that the US Dollar performance is going to be all about Trump and prospects for a big fiscal stimulus in the United States.
We think that the current range is what we are going to see through the first quarter. However, around March, supposedly, the Euro could dip a little bit closer to the parity level. At this point, we are looking at a fairly narrow range of 1.02-1.07 during the Q1.
At Societe Generale, we were expecting the Cable to move to 1.20 by the end of the first quarter, though it seems now that it had definitely reached the abovementioned level much faster than our prediction.
I believe that it will not have any impact on the widely anticipated rate hike by the US Central bank.
Traditionally, small and medium enterprises have not been as active in terms of exporting; however, the potential exists.