The economic outlook of U.S. business economists has improved over the past three months, though their sunnier view may be jeopardized by the resurgence of the coronavirus. A survey released Monday by the National Association for Business Economics finds a “significant snap-back in expectations from the depths reached across nearly all categories in April,” according […]
Confronted with an economy gripped by recession and high unemployment, the Federal Reserve made clear Wednesday that it will keep supplying all the help it can by buying bonds to maintain low borrowing rates and forecasting no rate hike through 2022. The Fed has cut its benchmark short-term rate to near zero. Keeping its rate […]
With the coronavirus-induced shutdown causing ripples in public and private markets alike, infrastructure assets took a hit in the first quarter of 2020 — and the worst may still be coming. According to data from the EDHEC Infrastructure Institute, infrastructure assets experienced a sharp drop in returns in the quarter. The decline was driven by […]
Devastated by the coronavirus, the U.S. economy is sinking. And the plunge is accelerating. Now, as some businesses in a few states start to trickle back to work, hopes are beginning to arise that the economy, damaged as it is, might be poised to rebound by the second half of the year. If more employees […]
Global growth slowed to three per cent on an annual basis in the middle of 2019 and is expected to remain below three per cent for the next 18 months, according to a Q4 report by Aviva Investors. “That would represent the weakest sustained period for over a decade,” the report said. “We expect all […]
A lot of ink has poured into the discussion of an inverted yield curve, and what it means, yet I am still unsure if people understand whether an inverted yield curve is a precursor of a recession or not. The fear of an inverted yield curve relates to historical evidence, which shows that an inverted […]
The current U.S. economic expansion has just become the longest on record. This period of uninterrupted growth has driven strong market performance over the past decade but increased risks to investors. Aside from the complacency engendered by fading memories of the prior downturn, it actually gets more challenging to assess companies’ cyclical vulnerability when they […]
For those worried the cycle is about the turn, it’s important to consider that there is no established length for a market cycle, said Avery Shenfeld, managing director and chief economist at CIBC, during a panel at a Canadian Investment Review and Benefits Canada Investor Insight Breakfast in Toronto on Jan. 10, 2019. Indeed, the […]
How companies can still shine in tough times
Look past the Depression for a mirror of our times.