B&H Watch: New gas connection as step to break Russia’s monopoly position

Ivona ZAMETICA DECEMBER 23, 2024 08:54 CET

The FB&H House of Representative adopted the Law on Southern Gas Interconnection between Croatia and FB&H, which represents a milestone for further legal and operative activities in infrastructure building. The key goal of the project is to avoid dependence on Russian gas.

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Czechia Watch: The CNB temporarily halts the easing cycle

Martin KRON DECEMBER 20, 2024 11:59 CET

At yesterday's meeting, the CNB's Bank Board decided to keep interest rates unchanged (key rate at 4%) for the first time since the monetary policy easing cycle began last December.

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Fed Watch: Stop-and-go

Franz ZOBL DECEMBER 19, 2024 07:35 CET

The Fed opted for a hawkish cut by reducing the key interest rate by 25 bps but at the same time reducing the prospects for further rate cuts in 2025 from 100 to 50 bps. The latter accounts not only for higher inflation readings of recent months but also for inflationary risks from likely Trump policies. The message is clear: this is the end of meeting-by-meeting rate cuts. Further, the Fed's guidance for 2025 is subject to high uncertainty.

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Kosovo Watch: GDP growth, from rocketing to rolling in Q3 2024

Fjorent RRUSHI DECEMBER 18, 2024 12:11 CET

Despite a strong start in 2024, Kosovo's economy faced a slight slowdown in Q3. Following impressive growth rates of 5.6% in Q1 and 4.3% in Q2, Q3 2024 saw a growth of 4.1%, falling short of our 4.5% target. This deceleration suggests a cooling off, yet overall growth remains solid. Given the latest data, we confirm our full-year GDP growth forecast of 4.7%, though with some downward risks.

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US Chartbook: Solid base, uncertain outlook

Markus TSCHAPECK DECEMBER 17, 2024 13:54 CET

Strong growth, no acute signs for a slump in the labour market - circumstances could be worse for the United States. However, not all appears rosy in the world's largest economy: Disinflation has become slower once again, and risks to the overall growth outlook are tilted more to the downside than to the upside. Above that, Donald Trump's win in the presidential elections poses further inflationary risks to the US economy. We want to use the exciting current environment to release a freshly updated edition of our US chartbook.

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Ukraine watch: Accelerating inflation pushed NBU to hawkish policy

Oleksandr PECHERYTSYN DECEMBER 13, 2024 10:25 CET

The recently stronger inflationary dynamic forced NBU to raise its key rate by 50bp to 13.5%. We see a certain shift in NBU's tactics to a more reactive approach and adjust our year-end 2025 key rate forecast upwards from 10.0% to 11.5%

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ECB Watch: Much Ado About Nothing

Franz ZOBL DECEMBER 12, 2024 16:45 CET

The ECB remains loyal to the 25bps and decided against a larger cut in key rates. The inflation outlook was confirmed, although the growth outlook was revised downward. However, the ECB does not see a recession and thus prefers to gradually lower key rates towards a neutral level. In our opinion, this should be achieved in the first half of 2025.

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