Políticas Energía La baja reciente en los precios internacionales del crudo provocó diversos cambios en la estrategia de implementación de la reforma energética. Por un lado, el cronograma para la implementación de la Ronda 1 (la asignación de los primeros contratos de explotación a empresas distintas a Pemex) fue alterado: mientras que, antes,  todas las […]

Política El partido de extrema izquierda Syriza llegó al poder en Grecia después de una crisis política y años de austeridad. Desde los primeros días del nuevo gobierno su discurso y acciones lo han puesto en franca confrontación con la Unión Europea, el Banco Central Europeo (ECB) y el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI).  El nuevo […]

Activity: Factor Markets In January, U.S. nonfarm payrolls increased by a strong 257K. The unemployment rate rose by 0.1 percentage point to 5.7% as a result of a higher participation rate (62.9% from 62.7% in December). Nominal wages were up 2.2% y/y from 1.7% in December. These results raise the risk that our forecast for […]

Activity: Businesses The official China Purchasing Manager Index (PMI) moved into contraction zone in January. Last month the NBS PMI was at 49.8, down from 50.1 in December. Last week’s China Markit PMI came in below the contraction threshold for the second consecutive month. China’s manufacturing PMIs have been trending down since September 2014. China […]

Monetary Policy UK. The Bank of England left unchanged both its monetary policy rate at 0.50% and its asset purchase program at £375Bn. We’ll be attentive to the tone and projections included in the Quarterly Inflation Report, due next Thursday. China. The People’s Bank of China decided to reduce the deposit reserve ratio by 0.5 percentage […]

Households The U.S. Conference Board consumer confidence index jumped to 102.9 from 93.1 a month earlier: its highest reading since August 2007 and well above its pre–Great-Recession average (100.1). Consumer confidence tops 1990-2007 average for first time since Great Recession

Businesses U.S. durable goods new orders surprised to the downside. New orders for core U.S. durable goods contracted by 0.8% y/y (a slower pace of contraction than the 1.3% observed in November). They had been expected to grow by 0.6%. But durable goods are choppy. We prefer to track the core index. Here the news […]

Overall Activity USA GDP growth in Q4 was mainly driven by accelerating private consumption. USA GDP grew 2.6% q/q saar from 5.0% in Q3, slightly above our forecast (2.5%). Private consumption (4.3% q/q saar) contributed 2.9 percentage points to GDP growth. Private consumption had been accelerating since Q2 2014, when it grew at 2.5%. The […]

Fiscal policy Mexico’s Treasury (Hacienda) hedged last year against the risk that in 2015 oil prices would be low. To brace for 2016–2017, Luis Videgaray—the secretary of the Treasury—has announced multiannual spending cuts amounting to $8.3Bn, or 0.7% of GDP. He also signaled that Pemex and CFE will be announcing cuts too. Mexico makes fiscal […]

Prices Euro area’s annual inflation rate according to Eurostat’s flash report slid deeper into negative territory in January to –0.6% from December’s –0.2%. Consumer prices were pushed down by the plummeting energy prices (–8.9% y/y). Services prices rose 1.0%. Euro area’s annual inflation rate according to Eurostat’s flash report slid deeper into negative territory in […]