Leading Indicators - 14 September
Key economic and financial metrics, and what to look out for in the week ahead
05 November 2021
In this edition:
- “The lady isn’t tapering”: the words of Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), which has agreed to ‘recalibrate’ and moderately lower the pace of its asset purchasing programme, while insisting it did not amount to tapering. Regardless of the messaging nuances, the result is that significant monetary tightening in the Eurozone has been postponed for now.
- Oil hits $74/barrel. Brent Crude has reached its highest level since the beginning of August, following forced closures of some US refineries in relation to Hurricane Ida. More widely, supply constraints continue to impact pricing across the shipping and oil industries. Closures of Chinese ports and labour shortages have seen prices for shipping a 40ft container from China to the US east coast increase from less than $3k two years ago, to circa $20k currently.
- UK job vacancies reach a record high. Today’s labour market statistics present a wealth of data that describe a strong recovery in the UK labour market: unemployment continuing to fall (to 4.6%), employment rising, and the level of vacancies suggesting further momentum for some months to come. Not unexpectedly, this is driving up wages at a pace that exceeds inflation.
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