ING Economic and Financial Analysis

The US economy slowed by less than feared in 4Q18 with investment picking up some of the slack. With the government shutdown over and a better backdrop regarding financial markets and trade, we...

Confidence indicators are still falling but there is some bottoming out in sight. With that in mind, the ECB next week will have to balance between pre-emptive action, which could be perceived as...

China's manufacturing and non-manufacturing PMI continued to fall in February. Unless the trade war truly turns into an extended truce, the weakening trend may not end quickly. As such we expect...

According to Statistics Netherlands, world trade growth slowed in 2018 to 3.3% compared to 4.7% growth in 2017. Is the trade war to blame?By Timme Spakman, Economist, International Trade...

GDP components provide interesting insights: the German economy is in a better shape than its current reputation suggests.Headlines such as “Germany at the brink of a recession” remain the...

Still falling. Germany's most prominent leading indicator, the Ifo index, dropped for a sixth consecutive month and came in at 98.5 in February, from 99.3 in January. The drop was driven by both...

Taiwan's export orders continue to shrink. And it's not because of the trade conflict. A lack of creativity in new smart device models suggests the outlook for exports won't get better anytime...

The minutes of the January meeting illustrate the European Central Bank's increasing concern. However, encouraging confidence indicators should prevent the central bank from twitching at the March...

Reports are emerging that the U.S. and China will agree on the need for a stable yuan as part of its trade deal. For China, this looks to be consistent with current FX policy. For the U.S., the aim of...

There still is hope but not a lot. A rising ZEW index, combined with a still falling current assessment component, suggest the pessimism will end, eventuallyA mixed start to the week for economic data...

Brink of recession and trade tensions mount' are both phrases we've used time and time again over the past few months' and next week isn't going to change. The US and China could be inching closer to...

The year 2018, which started off with expectations of the best growth performance since 2011, ended with a big stinker.According to the first official estimate of fourth quarter GDP growth, the German...

Your daily roundup of commodity news and ING viewsEnergyOPEC and U.S. supply OPEC released its monthly oil market report yesterday, which showed that OPEC output totaled 30.81MMbbls/d over January,...

Your daily roundup of commodity news and ING viewsEnergyU.S. crude oil inventories: The API is set to release its weekly inventory numbers later today, and expectations are that U.S. crude oil...

Within the next few weeks, we should know whether the trade truce between the US and China will give way to renewed conflict, peace or drawn out simmering tension. The result will determine in large...

We'll be watching Eurozone industrial figures with caution next week hoping to gain some insight into the length and depth of the economic slowdown. Otherwise, it'll all be about the British PM's...