Global ETF News For The Past Year
Housing Affordability Remains Stretched Amid Higher Interest Rate Environment
January 11, 2024--Prospective home buyers face high prices and elevated borrowing costs, while homeowners refrain from listing their properties
As global central banks raised interest rates to tame inflation, home prices have cooled relative to the start of the hiking cycle.
However, despite the sensitivity of the residential market to higher policy rates, prices are still above historical averages. Home prices in advanced economies, including most European Union countries, as well as Africa and the Middle East are 10 percent to 25 percent higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Rising interest rates have passed swiftly to residential mortgage markets, impeding affordability for current and prospective home buyers. Additionally, scarce home supply is limiting purchases in some regions. In all, housing affordability is more stretched amid still-elevated home prices and higher interest rates.
WEF-Global Risks Report 2024
January 10, 2024--Global growth is projected to be in line with the April 2024 World Economic Outlook (WEO) forecast, at 3.2 percent in 2024 and 3.3 percent in 2025.
The Global Risks Report, developed in collaboration with Marsh McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group, explores some of the most severe risks we may face over the next decade, against a backdrop of rapid technological change, economic uncertainty, a warming planet and conflict.
As cooperation comes under pressure, weakened economies and societies may only require the smallest shock to edge past the tipping point of resilience.
A deteriorating global outlook
Looking back at the events of 2023, plenty of developments captured the attention of people around the world-while others received minimal scrutiny. Vulnerable populations grappled with lethal conflicts, from Sudan to Gaza and Israel, alongside record-breaking heat conditions, drought, wildfires and flooding. Societal discontent was palpable in many countries, with news cycles dominated by polarization, violent protests, riots and strikes.
Although globally destabilizing consequences - such as those seen at the initial outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war or the COVID-19 pandemic- were largely avoided, the longer-term outlook for these developments could bring further global shocks.
High demand for energy-related critical minerals creates supply chain pressures
January 10, 2024--Critical minerals, such as cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel and rare earths, play a crucial role in the production of clean energy technologies, from wind turbines to electric cars. Over the past 20 years, annual trade in energy-related critical minerals has increased from US$ 53 billion to US$ 378 billion. However, the high demand for clean technology goods is putting pressure on the supply chains for these minerals.
Critical minerals are particularly in demand for the production of batteries for electric cars, with each battery requiring as much as 200kg of critical minerals. The battery sector is responsible for 70 per cent of the global demand for cobalt. It also requires aluminium, copper, lithium, nickel and rare earths. Electrolysers-crucial for green hydrogen production-rely on a variety of critical minerals, including platinum and iridium, two of the world’s rarest and most expensive metals. Rare earth elements are needed in particular for magnets, a vital component in many electrical machines, especially the most energy-efficient ones.
Global Economy Set for Weakest Half-Decade Performance in 30 Years
January 9, 2024---As the world nears the midpoint of what was intended to be a transformative decade for development, the global economy is set to rack up a sorry record by the end of 2024-the slowest half-decade of GDP growth in 30 years, according to the World Bank's latest Global Economic Prospectsreport.
By one measure, the global economy is in a better place than it was a year ago: the risk of a global recession has receded, largely because of the strength of the U.S. economy. But mounting geopolitical tensions could create fresh near-term hazards for the world economy.
Meanwhile, the medium-term outlook has darkened for many developing economies amid slowing growth in most major economies, sluggish global trade, and the tightest financial conditions in decades. Global trade growth in 2024 is expected to be only half the average in the decade before the pandemic . Meanwhile, borrowing costs for developing economies-especially those with poor credit ratings-are likely to remain steep with global interest rates stuck at four-decade highs in inflation-adjusted terms.
Global Economy Set for Weakest Half-Decade Performance in 30 Years
January 9, 2024--Reforms to boost investment and strengthen fiscal policy could help turn the tide
As the world nears the midpoint of what was intended to be a transformative decade for development, the global economy is set to rack up a sorry record by the end of 2024-the slowest half-decade of GDP growth in 30 years, according to the World Bank's latest Global Economic Prospects report.
By one measure, the global economy is in a better place than it was a year ago: the risk of a global recession has receded, largely because of the strength of the U.S. economy. But mounting geopolitical tensions could create fresh near-term hazards for the world economy.
Meanwhile, the medium-term outlook has darkened for many developing economies amid slowing growth in most major economies, sluggish global trade, and the tightest financial conditions in decades. Global trade growth in 2024 is expected to be only half the average in the decade before the pandemic . Meanwhile, borrowing costs for developing economies-especially those with poor credit ratings-are likely to remain steep with global interest rates stuck at four-decade highs in inflation-adjusted terms.
ETF investors jumped into a host of lossmaking trades in 2023
January 8, 2024--The unusual behaviour hit returns but also challenges theory that buy-high-sell-low mentality tends to prevail
Exchange traded fund investors pumped money into a host of lossmaking trades last year while pulling money out of a range of better-performing assets.
The unusual move, challenge the received wisdom that investors all too often jump on passing bandwagons and buy whatever is rising in value, typically at the wrong point in the cycle.
In the short term, at least, though, the divergences between performance and flows will have hit ETF investors in the pocket.
Protracted period of low growth looms large, undermining progress on sustainable development, warns UN flagship economic report
January 4, 2023-- Weakening global trade, high borrowing costs, elevated public debt, persistently low investment, and mounting geopolitical tensions put global growth at risk
Global economic growth is projected to slow from an estimated 2.7 per cent in 2023 to 2.4 per cent in 2024, trending below the pre-pandemic growth rate of 3.0 per cent, according to the United Nations World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) 2024, launched today. This latest forecast comes on the heels of global economic performance exceeding expectations in 2023.
However, last year's stronger-than-expected GDP growth masked short-term risks and structural vulnerabilities.
The UN's flagship economic report presents a sombre economic outlook for the near term. Persistently high interest rates, further escalation of conflicts, sluggish international trade, and increasing climate disasters, pose significant challenges to global growth.
The prospects of a prolonged period of tighter credit conditions and higher borrowing costs present strong headwinds for a world economy saddled with debt, while in need of more investments to resuscitate growth, fight climate change and accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
view the United Nations World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) 2024 report
G20 trade policy direction becoming more restrictive amid continued slow trade growth
December 18, 2023--Trade measures introduced by G20 economies have become more restrictive in recent months, according to the 30th WTO Trade Monitoring Report on G20 trade measures issued on 18 December.
The report shows that between mid-May and mid-October 2023, G20 economies introduced more trade-restrictive than trade-facilitating measures on goods, although the value of traded merchandise covered by facilitating measures continued to exceed that covered by restrictions. Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala called on the G20 to show leadership and contribute to economic stability and growth by unwinding recent and longstanding restrictions on trade.
IMF Working Papers-Fiscal Impacts of Climate Disasters in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies
December 15, 2023-Summary:
Climate-induced disasters are causing increasingly frequent and intense economic damages, disproportionally affecting emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) relative to advanced economies (AEs). However, the impact of various types of climate shocks on output growth and fiscal positions of EMDEs is not fully understood.
This research analyzes the macro-fiscal implications of three common climate disasters (droughts, storms, and floods) using a combination of macroeconomic data and comprehensive ground and satellite disaster indicators spanning the past three decades across 164 countries.
Across EMDEs, where agriculture tends to be the principal sector, a drought reduces output growth by 1.4 percentage points and government revenue by 0.7 percent of GDP as it erodes the tax bases of affected countries. Meanwhile, likely reflecting limited fiscal space to respond to a disaster, fiscal expenditure does not increase following a drought. A storm drags output growth in EMDEs, albeit with negligible impact on fiscal revenue, but government expenditure increases due to reconstruction and clean-up efforts. We find only limited impact of localized floods on growth and fiscal positions. In contrast, AEs tend to experience negligible growth and fiscal consequences from climate-induced shocks. As these shocks have much more detrimental effects in EMDEs, international support for disaster preparedness and climate change adaptation play a crucial role for these countries to confront climate change.
Developing Countries Paid Record $443.5 Billion on Public Debt in 2022
December 13, 2023-Poorest countries face risk of debt crises as borrowing costs surge
Amid the biggest surge in global interest rates in four decades, developing countries spent a record $443.5 billion to service their external public and publicly guaranteed debt in 2022, the World Bank's latest International Debt Report shows.
The increase in costs shifted scarce resources away from critical needs such as health, education, and the environment.
Debt-service payments-which include principal and interest-increased by 5 percent over the previous year for all developing countries. The 75 countries eligible to borrow from the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA)-which supports the poorest countries-paid a record $88.9 billion in debt-servicing costs in 2022. Over the past decade, interest payments by these countries have quadrupled, to an all-time high of $23.6 billion in 2022. Overall debt-servicing costs for the 24 poorest countries are expected to balloon in 2023 and 2024-by as much as 39 percent, the report finds.
