The PMI indices published this week give an early insight into the scale of the economic shock from Covid-19. The composite indices for Japan (35.8), Germany (37.2), France (30.2), the UK (37.1) and the US (40.5) all slumped in March. The euro zone composite PMI was the lowest ever recorded at 31.4. The deterioration was particularly marked for the sub-indices relating to employment and orders for goods and services. Figures for April, whilst remaining at historically low levels, are expected to show increasing divergence between the regions. In East Asia, internal demand should start to pick up, as activity starts to normalise in China. Conversely, the epidemic is spreading more rapidly in the US, India and Africa; meanwhile, many European countries remain in lock-down.
The coronavirus epidemic represents a combination of a demand, a supply and an uncertainty shock. This has knock-on effects on the price of oil and on financial conditions which in turn should end up acting as an additional drag on growth. The huge drop in the price of oil following the absence of an agreement amongst the OPEC+ countries on further production cuts, makes this worse. It hits the producer countries, increases the financial pressure on energy companies, in particular those which are highly indebted, whereas the reaction on the demand side will be muted due to the epidemic and lack of visibility. The timid improvement of business survey data at the end of 2019 has been stopped. Recent data show a very significant deterioration in China, Hong Kong
Depending on the source, estimates of the number of ‘cryptocurrencies’ vary between 1,600 and 3,000. These crypto-assets struggle to fulfil the three economic functions of money, and so cannot be considered as such. Although their fairly modest uptake currently limits their economic impact, increased use could create risks in the transmission of monetary policy, money creation and financial stability. Several central banks are looking at the introduction of a ‘central bank digital currency’ (CBDC) in response to these challenges. However, far from being simply a substitute for private cryptocurrencies, these CBDCs would carry specific risks in terms of financial stability, most notably that of a ‘digital bank run’
At the start of a new month, the purchasing managers indices are amongst the earliest data providing information on what happened the month before. Following the coronavirus outbreak they were even more eagerly awaited than normal. For the manufacturing sector, the picture is very mixed, with a considerable decline for the world index on the back of huge drops in China and Hong Kong. On the other hand, the index for the eurozone saw another increase, driven by Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Greece with Italy remaining stable and France weakening. In the US, both the Markit PMI and the ISM index declined. Clearly, except for China and Hong Kong, the data do not yet show the impact of the coronavirus epidemic but it is only a matter of time for this to happen
The international propagation of the coronavirus forces a rethink of the consequences for the global economy. Coming after the outbreak in China, the marginal impact on the global economy of the spreading of the epidemic should, a priori, be rather limited. Yet, financial markets have reacted very negatively. This jump in risk aversion reflects concern that the economic consequences may have been underestimated thus far as well as increased focus on tail risk. This ‘financial accelerator’ phenomenon may in turn contribute to the worsening of the growth outlook.
The data used to chart different measures of uncertainty do not yet take into account the impact of the coronavirus. With this caveat in mind, the signals nevertheless go in different directions...
Recent survey data have picked up, in particular in the manufacturing sector and in terms of export orders. The European Commission noted a marked increase of economic sentiment in the European Union, the eurozone, Germany and France in January, after substantial weakness in Q4. Although economists expect a pick-up in growth in the US as the year progresses, the dispersion is very wide. This means that the median forecast will inspire less confidence than if the level of disagreement amongst forecasters would be lower.
In recent months, the global manufacturing cycle has been bottoming out whereas in services a slight uptick has been noted. In addition, two major sources of uncertainty have seen a positive development: the US and China signed a trade deal and the UK and the European Union can at last start negotiations about their future relationship. Very accommodative central bank policy has contributed to buoyant market sentiment. The combination of these three factors - stabilisation of business sentiment, decline in uncertainty, supportive financial environment - implies conditions are met to see some uptick in growth. Nevertheless, caution prevails in this assessment, if only because later on this year, uncertainty may very well increase again.
