Archive

October 02, 2025
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EA: Rounding Jobs For Migrants

  • A surprise rise in EA unemployment reflects rounding rather than alarming weakness, with labour supply and demand still surging. Finland’s woes are more idiosyncratic.
  • Supply has trended much faster post-pandemic, sustaining demand at its old trend without extreme capacity constraints. Migration has more than accounted for the rise.
  • Ukrainians are dominating the flow and complicating the read through to disinflationary spare capacity. Wage growth is an even more critical signal when supply is uncertain.

By Philip Rush

October 01, 2025
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EA: Core Excess Revealed In Sep-25

  • Inflation’s break above target to 2.23%, within 1bp of our forecast, came as past energy price falls dropped out to reveal the more resilient underlying pressures.
  • Small upside surprises in large countries, like Germany and Italy, were balanced in number and contribution by larger surprises in small ones, like Greece and Estonia.
  • We expect less negative payback in October and January, preventing our profile from languishing below the target through 2026, like the consensus view does.

By Philip Rush

September 30, 2025
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UK: Government Leads Imbalances

  • Household saving and inflation have eroded their debt burden while corporates remain prudent. A lack of imbalances to correct starves the UK of fuel for a recession fire.
  • Persistent fiscal and current account deficits highlight where the UK’s primary risk lies. If the market regime focuses on fiscal issues, the corrective pressures could be fierce.
  • We don’t expect that correction to occur, but the Chancellor should tread carefully, while doves need not worry about a recession arising from healthier other UK sectors.

By Philip Rush

September 29, 2025
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UK: Lending Looks Stimulated

  • Lending activity is sustaining beyond the levels prevailing before the stamp duty tax hike distortion. Only housing transaction volumes are down, but by less than before.
  • New loan rates have fallen by 23bp since then, for a 110bp cumulative fall. New rates are close to the outstanding stock. Many borrowers are refinancing for similar deals.
  • Past tightening has broadly passed through, but the strength in broad money growth signals that monetary conditions are settling at a slightly stimulative setting.

By Philip Rush

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