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...This has put them on course to return more than €120bn to shareholders in 2024, up more than 50 per cent from last year....
...Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance’s secretary-general, told reporters on Thursday that two-thirds of members would meet the 2 per cent target this year, up from just three in 2014 when the defence investment...
...Business activity in the eurozone has picked up more than forecast, indicating the region is emerging from its recent period of stagnation, according to a closely watched survey of companies....
...Price pressures also picked up, as services companies passed on higher wage costs....
...But Habeck warned that, despite the positive economic news, Germany had to pick up the pace on structural reform....
...But jitters about a tighter Fed stance have pushed up bond yields in Europe as investors scale back the number of ECB rate cuts they expect this year....
...Economists said the recent pick-up in German industry reduced the chances of Europe’s largest economy shrinking again in the first quarter....
...The institutes warned that domestic demand had risen less than expected, while exports were falling despite a pick-up in global economic activity, in part due to a loss of competitiveness for energy-intensive...
...Bank lending has dried up since the ECB last year raised its benchmark deposit rate to 4 per cent....
...Martin Arnold Did US core inflation slow in March?...
...The 2.1 per cent monthly increase in output was the second month of solid growth for German industry after growth was revised up to 1.3 per cent in January, according to figures published by the federal...
...Some economists had predicted eurozone services inflation would rise in March owing to the earlier timing of Easter, which was expected to push up prices of package holidays and flights....
...S&P Global’s flash eurozone composite purchasing managers’ index, which measures businesses activity across the bloc, rose to a nine-month high of 49.9, up from 49.2 a month earlier....
...Spanish inflation has risen back up to 3.2 per cent in March, rebounding from 2.9 per cent in February as energy prices accelerated....
...The ministry estimated the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio would tick up from 137.8 per cent this year to 139.8 per cent in 2026....
...However, rate-setters worry that rapid wage growth is still pushing up prices in the labour-intensive services sector, where inflation slowed only slightly to an annual pace of 3.9 per cent in February....
...Martin Arnold Did US hiring slow in March? US employers’ pace of hiring is expected to have slowed in March but it is not likely to persuade the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates early....
...The institutes still expect growth to pick up next year to 1.4 per cent, down only slightly from their previous forecast of 1.5 per cent....
...The downturn in the manufacturing sector continued, easing only slightly, while services activity picked up....
...Martin Arnold Did US hiring slow in February?...
...Traders in swaps markets upgraded the likelihood of the ECB starting to cut rates in June to about 90 per cent, up from 75 per cent a day earlier....
...The Italian economist said wage growth needed to moderate from a level of more than 5 per cent last year, but warned of the risk that workers’ pay would fail to catch up with inflation, leaving household...
...Martin Arnold Most economists think there will be a pick-up in growth. So for instance, the OECD predicts growth for Germany in 2024 of 0.6 per cent....
...But energy inflation picked up slightly....
...Morgan Stanley economists on Friday estimated the ECB and national central banks of the eurozone would make combined losses of €62.2bn this year, up from €56.6bn last year....
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