Economy

Macroeconomic data, trends, and policy developments.

Coverage of key economic indicators, central bank policy decisions, inflation trends, labor data, and growth signals. This category focuses on the macroeconomic forces that shape markets, interest rates, and long-term capital allocation.

Articles

2,616 total articles

China's Push into Services Finds a Poster Child in Winter Sports Town

China's Push into Services Finds a Poster Child in Winter Sports Town

Chongli's ski-resort revival, led by Wanlong, illustrates how targeted infrastructure and agglomeration can unlock latent consumer demand. Beijing is increasingly promoting state investment in services - from winter sports to medical and elder care - as it seeks to revive consumption. Analysts warn the same supply-driven approach that built industr…

Japan’s Q4 GDP Growth Barely Positive as Investment Edges Up

Japan’s Q4 GDP Growth Barely Positive as Investment Edges Up

Japan’s economy recorded a slim annualised expansion of 0.2% in the October-December quarter, driven by a marginal recovery in corporate investment while private consumption cooled. The outcome was below market expectations and follows a larger revised contraction in the prior quarter, leaving policymakers and markets to weigh a gradual recovery am…

BofA Warns of Dollar Downside as Affordability Concerns Take Center Stage

BofA Warns of Dollar Downside as Affordability Concerns Take Center Stage

Bank of America analysts say a widening split between affluent and low-income households is focusing attention on affordability ahead of U.S. midterms. They flag Fed-driven mortgage rate relief as a likely policy response that could weigh on the U.S. dollar, while uncertainty over Kevin Warsh's Fed policy stance and the labor implications of artifi…

BCA Research Warns Yen Carry Trade Has Become Systemically Risky

BCA Research Warns Yen Carry Trade Has Become Systemically Risky

BCA Research has raised alarms about the scale and vulnerability of the Japanese yen carry trade, saying positions funded in yen have swelled to levels that make a reversal potentially disruptive for global markets. The firm points to enormous outstanding forward and swap exposures, limited hedging by domestic insurers, and historical patterns wher…

Shrinking the Fed's Balance Sheet: What It Would Mean for Markets and Liquidity

Shrinking the Fed's Balance Sheet: What It Would Mean for Markets and Liquidity

Kevin Warsh has long criticized the Federal Reserve's large bond holdings and favors a smaller balance sheet. Analysts at BofA and Morgan Stanley caution that any meaningful reduction would be technically difficult, slow, and could produce funding and market volatility unless accompanied by changes to bank liquidity liabilities or regulations. The …

Doha Meeting Signals Three Directions for AI Development

Doha Meeting Signals Three Directions for AI Development

More than 30,000 attendees at Web Summit in Doha converged on three recurring themes for artificial intelligence: its capacity to amplify small teams and startups, a pivot toward specialized, domain-specific AI solutions rather than commoditized large language models, and an emphasis on regional compute resilience and energy-backed data center stra…

Electric vehicles replace fuel-powered classics as Cuban fuel supply tightens

Electric vehicles replace fuel-powered classics as Cuban fuel supply tightens

Havana's familiar chorus of vintage gasoline cars is giving way to electric vehicles as Cuba confronts a severe fuel shortfall following tightened U.S. measures that halted Venezuelan oil shipments and warned other suppliers. Residents and state services increasingly rely on electric tricycles and rickshaw-style vehicles to keep neighborhoods mobil…

U.S. Regulators Take Step Toward Rewriting Capital Rules for Big Banks

U.S. Regulators Take Step Toward Rewriting Capital Rules for Big Banks

Two U.S. banking regulators have submitted rule drafts to the Office of Management and Budget that signal movement toward a fresh set of global-style capital rules for large banks. The filings, posted to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website, offer no technical details or timetable; the Federal Reserve has not posted a correspond…

Administration Unveils $38.3 Billion Overhaul of U.S. Immigration Detention System

Administration Unveils $38.3 Billion Overhaul of U.S. Immigration Detention System

The federal government has proposed a $38.3 billion Detention Reengineering Initiative (DRI) to expand and consolidate the U.S. immigration detention network. The plan would add more than 92,000 beds through acquisition, renovation and repurposing of facilities, create new regional processing centers and large-scale detention sites, and is slated f…

Supreme Court Sets Feb. 20 Opinion Day in High-Stakes Tariff Case

Supreme Court Sets Feb. 20 Opinion Day in High-Stakes Tariff Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has scheduled February 20 as an opinion day that will likely include a decision on President Trump's tariff policies. Additional opinion sessions are scheduled for February 24 and 25. The case, heard on an expedited timeline, could invalidate major tariffs that federal data show are costing importers more than $16 billion eac…

BNY Clients Step Up Dollar Hedging to Highest Level Since Late 2023

BNY Clients Step Up Dollar Hedging to Highest Level Since Late 2023

Clients of a major global custodian have increased their hedging of U.S. dollar exposure to levels not seen since late 2023, taking currency protection roughly 20% greater than the notional need implied by their U.S. assets. The trend reflects heightened investor caution toward the dollar in early 2026 and aligns with expectations around central ba…

Canada’s bank regulator says capital requirements sit in a ‘Goldilocks zone’

Canada’s bank regulator says capital requirements sit in a ‘Goldilocks zone’

Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) defends the country’s bank capital framework as appropriately calibrated, saying requirements achieve a “Goldilocks zone” that preserves financial stability while allowing lenders to support credit. A technical report benchmarking six systemically important Canadian banks agains…

WTO Director-General Backs Call for Overhaul of Global Trade Rules

WTO Director-General Backs Call for Overhaul of Global Trade Rules

World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said she agrees with U.S. calls to reform the global trading system, noting the system's resilience but lack of robustness. Her comments come ahead of a major WTO meeting in Cameroon next month and follow U.S. tariffs imposed by executive order last year that are awaiting a U.S. Supreme …

U.S. Inflation Cools Slightly in January, Keeping Rate-Cut Path Intact

U.S. Inflation Cools Slightly in January, Keeping Rate-Cut Path Intact

U.S. consumer prices rose modestly in January, with the Consumer Price Index increasing 0.2% from December and 2.4% from a year earlier, slightly under economists' expectations. The delayed release did not change the view among many market participants that the Federal Reserve remains positioned to lower interest rates later this year, though under…

BoE’s Chief Economist Says Policy Tightness Increasingly Hard to Measure

BoE’s Chief Economist Says Policy Tightness Increasingly Hard to Measure

Bank of England Chief Economist Huw Pill told a Santander Bank event in London that it is becoming harder to gauge how much monetary policy is suppressing demand. While he described the disinflation process as intact but incomplete, Pill said wage settlements remain elevated and that underlying inflation would be about 2.5% after removing a half pe…