In terms of effects on the EU economy it is probably not going to be very positive.
I believe the positive down revision is that the RBA saw stronger-than-expected growth in the first quarter, which largely came through exports growth.
I agree with the statement that Swiss house prices are extremely high and there is a risk that it could start to retrace.
This year the economy is still carrying the momentum we had expected it to at the start of the year.
The strong New Zealand dairy production season, along with rising European and US supply, is putting continued downward pressure on global dairy prices.
Leading indicators in Germany have certainly come off somewhat and other officials have indeed started to voice concern.
We remain relatively positive on the Sterling, because to our mind the BoE will start hiking rates after the summer
Indeed, we see Q2 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) tracking closer to 2.1% quarter on quarter annualized now, and we expect the Bank of Canada to revise their growth projection lower on July 16th.
I believe that US GDP for the first quarter has mostly fallen with a relative impact.
To my mind, further monetary support, which will ultimately result in a weaker Yen, can be triggered by two factors.
First and fore most that is going to be very important is the U.S. Dollar trend.
Looking from an aggregate economic perspective it is difficult to measure.
I think it is mostly symbolic. The changes in economic and inflation outlook will be insignificant, however, that should keep the Euro weak (as it had depreciated in expectation of such measures and renewed appreciation would have further depressed inflation).
We think that the rate cut from the European Central Bank was necessary given that the recent inflation data from the Eurozone has continued to move lower.
To my mind, the Sterling has been generally outperforming most of the majors in 2014 so far.
In the recent years the New Zealand economy has been boosted significantly by the Canterbury earthquake rebuilding effort. Construction activity has also been supported by a robust real estate market; though that impact has waned in recent months.
In my opinion, weather is an excuse and this GDP number indicates that there is a severe slowing in the US economy. My personal view is that this is not a one up incident, but it is really where the economy is trading right now.
In this particular case, it looks more like a short term issue. Canada's trade balance tends to fluctuate between a billion dollar deficit or surplus.
After the surprisingly strong data in the first quarter, bolstered by rush demand and business investment, Citi economists expect Q2 growth to contract by 4.3% at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, and then rebound 2.9% in the third quarter of the year.
The ECB has made it pretty clear that they are reasonably patient regarding inflation rates reaching target levels. At the moment they are not concerned about the slow speed of raising inflation.
The Pound has been one of the best performing G-10 currencies recently. I believe the outperformance is here to stay and the underlining drivers of it are still firmly in place.
The U.S. labor market is on the right path to closing the gap on the long-term average participation rates. I believe that the key difficulty has been the increases in wages, which have been running below inflation until recently.
Every year gold prices move through a seasonal cycle. At the beginning of the year, in January, a lot of fresh investor capital comes into the markets and drives up asset prices.
According to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), Britain's economy has grown 0.9% in the first quarter of the year, making it the fastest rate of growth since the second quarter of 2010. What do really these figures mean and do you think that country's economic recovery is still in its infancy?To some extent it is. It