Dr. Platon Monokroussos, Chief Market Economist, Deputy General Manager, Eurobank Ergasias S.A
HIGHLIGHTS
WORLD ECONOMIC & MARKET DEVELOPMENTS
GLOBAL MARKETS: Mirroring losses in Wall Street overnight, the majority of Asian bourses weakened today pressured by a renewed drop in energy shares. The price of Brent crude oil resumed its downtrend marking a new six year low of $45.2pb earlier today amid oversupply woes, having declined by ca 60% cumulatively since multi-year highs hit in mid-June 2014.
GREECE: Halting a two-month improving trend, the Economic Sentiment Indicator for Greece dropped in December coming in at an eight-month low of 98.9 from 102.7 in November on the back of political uncertainty ahead of the January 25 snap general elections. In other news, speaking in a Bloomberg Television interview y-day, Greece’s Minister of Finance Gikas Hardouvelis was quoted as saying that the prospect of Greece “leaving the euro area is not necessarily a bluff” adding that “an accident could happen, and the whole idea is to avoid it”.
SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE
SERBIA: Annual HICP came in at a 4-month low of 1.7% in December, easing from 2.4% in November amid falling energy prices and approaching anew a record low of 1.3% hit in June last year.
ROMANIA: December’s CPI came in slightly weaker than anticipated at a 6-month low of 0.8%YoY, vs. a market median forecast of 0.9%YoY and a 1.3%YoY print registered in the prior month.
BULGARIA: Trade balance ran a deficit of BGN 538.9mn in November, narrowing modestly (by BGN 16.6mn) compared to a year earlier.
CESEE MARKETS: Emerging stock markets broadly firmed in European trade on Tuesday favored by upbeat trade data from China. Elsewhere, the majority of CESEE currencies were mixed in European trade on Tuesday with the Turkish lira remaining the best performer so far this year mostly favored by falling oil prices.
Viewers can read the full report herebelow:
Dailyoverview January 13, 2015
