Bloomberg (April 16)
“China’s economy soared in the first quarter as consumer spending strengthened, joining production and investment in recovering from the Covid slump a year ago.” Year on year, GDP “climbed a record 18.3%,” but that is “skewed by comparisons from a year ago when the economy was in lockdown. A better reading of the economy’s momentum comes from quarter-on-quarter growth, which slowed to 0.6% from 2.6% in the previous three months.”
Tags: China, Consumer spending, Covid, Economy, GDP, Investment, Lockdown, Momentum, Production, Record, Recovering, Skewed, Slump, Strengthened
Reuters (September 5)
“The most likely outcome is now that GDP growth will come in below 2.5%, perhaps significantly lower, the worst since the recession of 2008/09. By implication, oil consumption growth is likely to slip below 1% and 1 million bpd, in line with BP’s latest forecast,” but well short of the last two decade’s 1.5% average annual growth rate. “Until the global economy recovers momentum, oil consumption growth is likely to remain well below trend, keeping prices under pressure.”
Tags: BP, Economy, Forecast, GDP, Growth, Implication, Momentum, Oil consumption, Outcome, Recession
Fortune (June 7)
“As the problem of plastic waste around the world has gotten worse, many countries and companies have begun to ban single-use plastic items.” Ikea has added momentum to this movement. Ikea announced “it will stop selling single-use plastic products in its stores and remove them from its restaurants by 2020.” This ties into the retailer’s larger sustainability vision. Ikea seeks “to become ‘planet positive’ by 2030, and aims to purchase 100% renewable energy by 2020, achieve zero emissions on deliveries by 2025 and start using only renewable and recycled materials in its products.”
Tags: Ban, Energy, Ikea, Momentum, Planet positive, Plastic waste, Renewable, Retailer, Single-use, Sustainability, Zero emissions
Barron’s February 21)
“Retailers had a great holiday season to end 2017…but not all of them will be able to hang on to that momentum throughout the year.” Despite some gains, such tighter inventory control and higher gross margins, “investors will be more focused on whether or not companies can sustain that momentum, given how retail was trounced last year by worries about Amazon.com and e-commerce in general.”
Tags: Amazon, E-commerce, Gross margins, Holiday season, Inventory control, Investors, Momentum, Retailers
Retail TouchPoints (January 4)
Despite a strong holiday sales season, “a real department store turnaround will demand a lot of work.” 2018 will represent “a major ‘prove it’ period for department stores. The sector has taken quarterly sales hits for several years, forcing major players to shutter hundreds of stores, but early holiday numbers indicate these retailers have harnessed some positive momentum.”
Tags: Demand, Department stores, Holiday, Momentum, Retailers, Sales, Sales hits, Turnaround
Institutional Investor (October Issue)
“Japan’s back, baby! No, you’re not hallucinating…. The world’s third-largest economy may finally have put its deflationary past behind…. Gross domestic product expanded for six straight quarters through June, momentum not seen in more than a decade, and private consumption, which accounts for two thirds of GDP, rose nearly 1 percent in the second quarter.”
Tags: Deflationary, Economy, Expanded, GDP, Hallucinating, Japan, Momentum, Private consumption
Reuters (April 27)
For “the first time since March 2008 the BOJ used the word ‘expansion’ to describe the state of the economy, signaling its conviction that the recovery was gaining momentum.” Still, some “analysts doubt inflation will accelerate as quickly as the BOJ projects, with slow wage growth keeping households from boosting spending.”
Tags: Analysts, BOJ, Economy, Expansion, Household spending, Inflation, Momentum, Recovery, Wage growth
Institutional Investor (January 21)
“For more than half a decade, a seemingly irresistible momentum has been building around the idea that finance and technology are converging at a historical inflection point, a combination of business transformation and competitive disruption that has come to be labeled fintech.” Fintech “has legs,” making a “2000-style crash” unlikely. Still, fintech is not immune to cyclical decline, may be approaching frothy levels, and carries other risks as well.
Tags: Cyclical decline, Disruption, Finance, Fintech, Froth, Inflection point, Momentum, Risks, Technology, Transformation
Financial Times (August 18)
With the momentum of the Solidarity movement, Poland broke free of the Soviet Union on August 24, 1989. “Twenty-five years on, a generation of Poles has grown up with no personal experience of communism. Poland is a sovereign democracy, an increasingly prosperous market economy and a proud member of Nato and the EU— a nation transformed from the dreadful era of one-party rule, dismal living standards and subservience to Moscow. Poland, you could say, has never had it so good.”
Tags: Communism, Democracy, EU, Market economy, Momentum, Moscow, Nato, Poland, Solidarity, Soviet Union
Institutional Investor (July 23)
However you look at it, “positive inflation momentum is apparent” in the U.S. From the top down, unemployment has fallen. As slack lessens, “we may begin to see signs of this tightening appear in the form of wage growth.” And from the bottom up, there were “multiple factors that pushed inflation lower over the past 12 to 18 months: predominantly, disinflation from medical and core goods components.” But these were driven by unique events like the sequester and the strength of the U.S. dollar. “Neither the medical nor the core goods component is likely to be a drag on inflation going forward.”
Tags: Core goods, Disinflation, Dollar, Drag, Inflation, Medical, Momentum, Sequester, Slack, Tightening, U.S., Unemployment, Wage growth
