Igor Kuchma

The world’s largest economies still struggle to get off the slippery slope of recession – in fact, the situation is worsening, with more countries joining the list of problematic ones. Germany, which has now had negative GDP for four consecutive quarters, has been joined by the UK and Japan, which have been in the same […]

The commercial real estate market is basically in ashes, regional banks’ paper losses continue to grow, yet Wall Street hits record highs with the S&P 500 breaking through the 5,000-point barrier for the first time in history. Is the US stock market becoming an unsustainable bubble? The first thing to say is that the index […]

Last week’s discussions focused on the possible re-emergence of a banking crisis in the US due to unexpected weakness in New York Community Bancorp’s quarterly report. In particular, investors were unnerved by fourth-quarter losses due to a sharp increase in loan loss reserves and a dividend cut from 17 cents to 5 cents. Addressing the […]

This week marks the first FOMC meeting of the year, and investors and traders will be watching for clues as to when a change in monetary policy might occur. It is worth noting that, for now, hopes for a change in March have fallen below 50% due to solid GDP data and as instability in […]

While the S&P 500 continues to rise and the overall U.S. economy remains resilient, pessimism about China continues to grow, with Chinese stocks in Hong Kong falling to their lowest level in 19 years. What could account for this disparity? In short, different geopolitical and economic contexts. While business activity continues to hold up in […]

Time passes, but one thing remains the same: the world is getting hotter and hotter, not only in terms of temperature but also in terms of geopolitical tensions. Last week, in addition to new and less-than-optimistic developments in the Red Sea, Ecuador and the capital of Papua New Guinea became the focus of the press. […]

The latest ISM and PMI reports and the strength of the labour market have made it clear that the worrying predictions about the US economy are overblown. In other words, the likelihood of a hard landing and recession seems to be ruled out. However, this is not great news for markets, as it increases the […]

Headwinds in the form of rising geopolitical tensions did not prevent US inflows in 2023 from breaking all-time records and pushing indices to all-time highs. Against the backdrop of Santa’s rally, stable energy prices and cooling inflation, analysts began to upgrade their equity forecasts for the coming years. Specifically, Yardeni now expects the S&P 500 […]

The central bank week did not bring any surprises as the ECB, Fed, and BoE kept interest rates unchanged, giving investors hope about the end of monetary policy tightening. The good news is that although the rhetoric of the chairmen of the regulators remains hardline, the data suggest that inflation is finally receding as the […]

Neither interest rates, the economic slowdown, nor even the introduction of AI have caused the labour market to collapse. It continues to improve like there is no tomorrow. Who is responsible for such resilience? The unexpected drop in the US unemployment rate to 3.7% in November, down from 3.9% in October, is not so much […]