Standard Risk Global articles related to Macro.
The 2026 Strait of Hormuz disruption exposes a structural fault line: Japan sources 87% and South Korea 81% of total energy from fossil fuel imports routed overwhelmingly through the chokepoint. This…
The USTR's proposed Section 301 forced-labor tariffs — 12.5% on 44 countries and 10% on 16 others, spanning 60 economies total — mark the most sweeping unilateral trade action of the decade. The Drew…
The revised US Russia sanctions bill—scaling from a blanket 500% tariff to a targeted 100% duty on five top Russian crude buyers—reintroduces coercive trade policy with narrowed blast radius. Combine…
USDJPY is testing the 162 breakout level as Fed-BOJ divergence hardens, with Morgan Stanley estimating $500bn in outstanding yen carry positions after the August 2024 partial unwind. The Bank of Japa…
Gold spot fell below $4,000/oz for the first time since November, as the US dollar’s rally and rising real yields crushed the non-yielding asset. The breach of this psychological level, confirmed in …
The Federal Reserve’s June hold at 3.50–3.75% is anything but neutral; it cements a hawkish macro regime as markets price in further tightening. The U.S. 10-year yield near 4.5% and a surging dollar …
The US-Iran peace deal’s immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz reverses the conflict’s most acute energy chokepoint, potentially returning roughly 11 million barrels per day of offline crude su…
The May 2026 U.S. Producer Price Index surged 6.5% year-over-year, with a sharp 1.1% month-over-month jump, while consumer inflation rose to 4.2%—the highest in three years. The scale of cost-push in…
The European Central Bank raised its deposit rate 25bp to 2.25% on Thursday - its first hike since 2023 - choosing to fight energy-driven inflation even as it cut its 2026 growth forecast to 0.8%…
Friday's $1.3 trillion wipeout in U.S. chip stocks was a verdict on valuation, not demand. Broadcom reported AI revenue up 143% to $10.8 billion and a $73 billion backlog - yet its shares fell and …
Brent crude settled at $92.05 on Friday, capping a roughly 18% May collapse - its steepest monthly fall since the 2020 pandemic - after US and Iranian negotiators agreed a 60-day memorandum to ex…
Headline PCE jumped to 3.8% in April — the highest reading since May 2023 — handing new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh a hawkish opening hand. CME futures now place a 40% probability on a December rate hike ,…
Iran's pledge to restore full Strait of Hormuz traffic within a month of a deal sent WTI crude down 6% to $88.3 on 27 May, dragging the 30-year Treasury yield off its 5.20% near-19-year high to 5.02%…
The downgrade is unusually large. A 30bp cut to growth alongside a 110bp lift to inflation in a single forecast cycle is the steepest stagflationary revision Brussels has published since the 2022 gas…
Iran is reviewing Washington's latest framework — Trump declared talks "in the final stages" — yet shipping disruption remains acute. CENTCOM has turned away 94 vessels through May 22, UANI is tracki…
Cross-asset markets registered a classic stagflation Friday: Brent surged to USD 109.26 as the Strait of Hormuz remained closed, the US 10-year yield jumped 9bp to 4.544% — its highest in a year — an…
April PPI rose 1.4% MoM, the biggest monthly jump since 2022, lifting the annual rate to 6.0% versus the 0.5% consensus. Core PPI hit 5.2%. Tuesday's CPI had already printed 3.8% YoY (highest since M…
Brent crude jumped 3% to settle at $104.21/bbl on May 11 as the US-Iran ceasefire frayed and the Strait of Hormuz entered its eleventh week of partial closure. The IEA estimates 14 million barrels pe…
The ECB held the deposit rate at 2.00% as eurozone April CPI jumped to 3.0% and Q1 GDP stalled at +0.1% — textbook stagflation. Brent briefly hit a four-year high of $126.41/bbl before settling at $1…
The Fed will hold at 3.50–3.75% today — its third consecutive pause and almost certainly Jerome Powell's final FOMC. Markets price the hold at ~100% probability . The setup is unambiguous: with Brent…
Trump's Saturday cancellation of the Witkoff-Kushner Pakistan trip — paired with Baker Hughes' guidance that the Strait of Hormuz may not fully reopen until H2 2026 — has converted what equity market…
A two-month dual blockade of the Strait of Hormuz lifted Brent to $105.33 on Friday, capping a +16% weekly surge — yet the S&P 500 ( 7,165 ) and Nasdaq ( 24,837 ) closed at fresh records, betting the…
The S&P 500 closed at an all-time high of 7,022.95 on April 15, even as the IEA's April Oil Market Report confirmed global supply has fallen 10.1 mb/d to 97 mb/d — the largest disruption ever recorde…
Trump's announcement of "productive" US-Iran talks triggered a historic risk-on rotation on March 23, sending Brent crude down 10.9% to $99.94/bbl and the Dow up 631 points. The halt of strikes on Ir…
The S&P 500 broke below its 200-day moving average on Friday for the first time since October 2023, closing at 6,606 (−1.5%), as the convergence of the Fed’s rate hold at 3.50–3.75% and Brent crude a…
This report analyses the conflict's implications across three dimensions that matter for companies operating across borders: energy price trajectories under multiple scenarios, macroeconomic transmission channels across importing and exporting economies, and the specific impact on Asian cross-border investment in the Middle East and beyond. The core finding is a resilience shock disguised as an energy shock: Asia's energy-dependent manufacturing base faces a structural inflection point. Net energy exporters—the...
Emerging markets are growing faster than developed markets. They have been growing faster for two decades. And yet the fundamental promise of economic development — that faster growth leads to income convergence with wealthy nations — is failing for the vast majority of developing economies. This is the emerging market paradox: growth without convergence. The IMF projects emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) will grow at approximately 4.0% in 2026, compared to approximately 1.5% for advanced economies.…
Due diligence has undergone a fundamental transformation — from a post-signing compliance exercise to a pre-LOI strategic function that shapes deal economics, pricing, and go/no-go decisions. The global DD services market reached $7.6 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at 7.7% CAGR to $11 billion by 2029, driven by regulatory convergence, ESG integration, and escalating cyber risk. Seventy-two percent of organisations now walk away from acquisitions due to ESG concerns, over 50% encounter ESG-related deal...
The global electric vehicle industry has reached a critical inflection point. Sales hit 17.1 million units in 2024 — one in five vehicles sold worldwide — and are projected to exceed 20.7 million in 2025. But beneath the growth narrative lies a profitability crisis: only four EV manufacturers are profitable (BYD, Tesla, Li Auto, and Seres/Aito), while legacy automakers have collectively lost $114 billion on their EV divisions since 2022. BYD surpassed Tesla in pure electric vehicle sales for the first time in...
The S&P 500 fell to 6,740.02 — its lowest close of 2026 — as a toxic combination of surging oil prices and deteriorating US labour data crystallised stagflation fears. The Dow dropped to 47,501.55, t…
Global infrastructure finance is undergoing a structural pivot. Data centre capital expenditure surged 51% to $455 billion in 2024, while traditional transport infrastructure shrank from 45% to 22% of total deal value in a decade. Hyperscaler companies — Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta — now collectively outspend all multilateral development banks combined, with $370 billion in planned annual infrastructure investment for 2025. Simultaneously, Belt and Road Initiative lending rebounded to a record $213.5 billion...
The plumbing of international finance is breaking. Correspondent banking — the system through which banks in different countries clear cross-border payments on each other’s behalf — has been contracting steadily for over a decade. The reasons are well understood: escalating sanctions complexity, aggressive AML enforcement, FATF compliance pressure, and a cost-of-compliance calculus that makes many smaller corridors commercially unviable. The consequences are less widely appreciated. When a bank in Fiji loses its...
China set its 2026 GDP growth target at 4.5–5% at the opening of the National People's Congress — the lowest target since the 1990s and the first time a range format has been used. The S&P 500 reboun…
The numbers tell a story of contradiction. In 2025, global foreign direct investment rose 14% to $1.6 trillion, according to UNCTAD’s World Investment Report. Cross-border M&A values climbed 29% to $1.46 trillion. Greenfield project announcements in data centres alone exceeded $270 billion. By any measure, cross-border capital is flowing at levels not seen since the pre-pandemic era. Yet the corridors through which that capital flows are narrowing. Every major host economy has tightened its foreign investment...
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