Archive

February 11, 2026
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UK: Unsustainable Wage Growth

  • Wage growth of 3.25% is unlikely to be consistent with achieving the 2% inflation target, contrary to the BoE’s assessment that relied on consistently dovish-biased assumptions.
  • Stagnant productivity and a recovery in profit margins are problems that should inform any coincident assessment. But the Bank is relying on the world to bail out UK excesses.
  • The Euro area and China are not structurally exporting disinflation anymore, and the latter is not politically tolerable. The biased BoE seems set to keep missing its target.

By Philip Rush

December 09, 2025
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China Re-rooting Rather Than Dumping

  • China’s rising export growth to Europe in November demonstrates base effects around a steady trend that predates US tariff increases. It isn’t about dumping.
  • Avoidance measures remain rife, with transhipping through Vietnam not dented by the provisions in their US trade deal. Effective tariff rates aren’t rising belatedly.
  • Profit-maximising companies still seem to be working around US measures, keeping the impact on inflation and growth smaller than many other economists feared.

By Philip Rush

December 08, 2025
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2026 Politics: Nine Guesses & A Certainty

  • In what promises to be another year fraught with uncertainty, politics and markets will again be dominated by the United States in general and Donald Trump in particular.
  • Widely differing views of equity market prospects demonstrate this, i.e. the ‘bubble is about to burst’ doomsayers versus the bullish seeming consensus on Wall Street.
  • However, the biggest challenge facing investors is focusing on what really matters amid the continuing ‘noise’ emanating from the Trump Administration in particular.

By Alastair Newton

October 27, 2025
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China/US: Sauce For The Goose…

  • Donald Trump and Xi Jinping’s 30 October summit will likely stave off, for now, any further escalation of trade tensions between China and the US.
  • However, thanks to its monopoly on strategic minerals and Xi Jinping’s willingness to play a long game — even beyond ‘mere’ trade — China holds the stronger hand.
  • Irrespective of whatever Mr Trump concedes this week to secure a ‘headline grabber’, Xi Jinping will therefore come back for more, not least on Taiwan.

By Alastair Newton

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