Search results

Undoubtedly, the two key questions on investors’ minds and the central theme of the financial markets for much of the year – particularly in the last month – have been when the ECB and the Fed will lower interest rates and how many times they will do so in 2024. Thus, in May and early June the markets saw volatility in financial asset prices as investors sought clarity on the central banks’ future decisions.

After using our consumption indicator to analyse the data on expenditure at petrol stations paid for with CaixaBank customer bank cards, we once again found that not all consumers reacted equally to the rise in fuel prices.

Political uncertainty, the main source of volatility in the market, reduced investors’ appetite for risk in June, resulting in a marked reduction compared to May, although it remained high.

Portugal’s growth in the first quarter of the year fell short of expectations, shrinking 0.5% quarter-on-quarter according to the preliminary estimate of Portugal’s National Statistics Institute.

At least for now, and despite the depreciation it has accumulated so far this year, the value of the dollar does not appear to reflect any major change in the currency’s central role in the international monetary system.

According to CaixaBank’s internal data, consumption grew by 2.2% in Spain during Q2 2022, despite the decline in consumer confidence due to the inflationary pressures and economic uncertainty.

A real-time analysis of wage incomes shows that, in 2022, the impact which the pandemic had on inequality has been undone and that it now stands at a very similar level to that which existed prior to the pandemic. 

Central banks are now accelerating the tightening of financial conditions in an attempt to eliminate demand-side pressures, at least while supply remains subject to all kinds of obstacles.

The outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, and more recently the war in Ukraine, has accelerated the trend of decoupling between the US and China, and Europe also appears to have joined in, albeit somewhat timidly for now. We analyse the EU’s dependence on China in order to understand whether European strategic autonomy is possible, or even desirable.

A new indicator of the monthly expenditure at petrol stations using anonymised data from CaixaBank customers shows us how we have adapted our fuel consumption to the rise in prices.

Now, although the ECB has tightened the conditions required for an interest rate hike, there are more factors to support the idea that medium-term inflation could lie at 2%, and after more than a decade without doing so the ECB may finally raise interest rates.

This month, we have updated our forecast scenario for the Spanish economy. Although we now expect growth to be slightly lower than previously anticipated, the message remains broadly positive and there are several elements sustaining the Spanish economy’s dynamic growth.

In our revision of the international forecast scenario, we maintain the assumption that the bilateral tariff between the US and the EU will be 10%. We also maintain the assumption that the tariffs between the US and China will reach a level of 60% in 2025 (an increase of 45 pps compared to December 2024), but now this increase is not anticipated to take place as gradually as we previously thought.

The truce in the tariff tensions between Washington and Beijing ended up fuelling a renewed risk appetite in May. However, the optimism was gradually overshadowed as the month progressed by the predictable fiscal deterioration in the US and other developed economies, as well as by the persistent volatility in Trump’s trade policy.

News related to the supply problems (or bottlenecks) within global value chains have been a permanent fixture of recent months. The temporary shutdown of some car plants due to the lack of chips and difficulties in the Black Friday or Christmas campaigns due to delays in the arrival of shipping containers are some of the best known examples. In this article, we analyse what is causing these problems and, looking ahead to 2022, how long they could last.

Although the storm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is not yet over, we can already analyse what impact the response from the public administrations has had on wage inequality. Public sector payments to workers on furlough or those unemployed cushioned the fall in income for many workers, but to what extent did they dampen the rise in inequality? Internal CaixaBank data allow us to answer this question already, as well as allowing us to assess what would be the implications of greater efficiency in the management of these benefits.

We analyse the recent trend in consumption in Spain based on data from the CaixaBank Research Real-Time Economics portal, which we have expanded with information on direct debit payments, as well as more detail on each individual sector and on the evolution of e-commerce.

Fiscal activism is not declining in the US. Following the vast disbursements of 2020 and 2021, fiscal activity is now focusing on negotiations regarding the new stimulus packages proposed by the Biden administration: The American Jobs Plan (AJP, which revolves around infrastructure) and The American Family Plan (AFP, with a social focus). But what can we expect to come out of these negotiations?