globaleconomicnews

The global economy has fallen out of balance, and there are no signs yet that it will return to its original positions. Mohamed A. El-Erian, an American-Egyptian economist and professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, explained in a piece for Project Syndicate why today it is more important not to worry about where everything is heading, but to embrace the new reality with all its benefits of instability.

Fitch Ratings has lowered its global economic growth outlook while raising its oil price forecast, warning that the oil shock from the conflict between the US and Iran is causing widespread damage to the global economy.
Now the agency expects global economic growth to hit 2.4% this year, trimming the previous estimate by 0.2 percentage points. "Forecasts have been revised down across the board as inflation growth is squeezing real wages, stifling consumption, and ramping up costs for companies," says the report from Fitch economists.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management analysts expect the first cryptocurrency to deliver an average annual return of 10% over the next 10–15 years. This is higher than their forecasts for U.S. stocks, bonds, and gold, according to the annual Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions report for 2027.
For the first time in the study’s 31-year history, JPMorgan’s asset management division has included bitcoin in its long-term return forecasts.

During a visit by an American delegation to Samarkand, where the foreign ministers of the United States and Central Asian countries met in the C5+1 format, the United States and Uzbekistan signed investment agreements worth a total of $12 billion. A number of Uzbek media outlets reported this on Monday, October 19, citing the press service of Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Investment, Industry and Trade.

ExxonMobil (XOM) will report its third-quarter 2026 results on October 30; traders note expected support from refining margins, a negative impact on the Upstream segment from lower liquid hydrocarbon volumes, a benefit from gas, growth in the Specialty segment, and weakness in the Chemical segment.
Around 20 analysts track ExxonMobil (XOM). The average price target is approximately $173. Recent price targets range from $142 to $185; Morgan Stanley upgraded its rating to “Overweight” with a price target of $185, while Wells Fargo downgraded its rating to “Equal Weight” with a price target of $182.

RELIANCE welcomed competition in India's satellite communications and broadband access market, noted that Jio's satellite services are awaiting government approvals, and said all applicants undergo the same regulatory approval process.
Proceeds from the Jio Platforms IPO will primarily be used for the early repayment of part of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd's borrowings and for general corporate purposes; the deal does not include a secondary share sale by RELIANCE shareholders.

A sharp sell-off in U.S. technology stocks spread to Asian exchanges on the morning of October 15. After trading opened, South Korea’s KOSPI fell more than 7%, Japan’s Nikkei more than 4%, and Taiwan’s Taiex 3%, Nikkei Asia reports.
Shares of South Korea’s SK Hynix, Nvidia’s main memory chip supplier, plunged more than 11%, while Japan’s Kioxia fell 11.4% and equipment supplier Tokyo Electron dropped 7.2%. The panic in Asia also spread beyond the tech sector, Nikkei notes: shares in Hyundai Motor, South Korea’s largest automaker, lost more than 6%.

The US has already entered a “death spiral” of government debt, says Ray Dalio, founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates. Rising borrowing forces investors to demand higher yields; increased interest expenses widen the budget deficit, and the government has to borrow even more, he explains on his LinkedIn page.

China and the European Union have reached a mutual understanding on the export of Chinese hybrid cars to Europe. European Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said this on Friday, October 9, following two days of talks with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing. The talks aimed to ease trade tensions between Beijing and Brussels.

Carlyle, one of the largest U.S. investment firms, said its agreement to buy most of the foreign assets of Russian oil company Lukoil had expired. The deal, agreed earlier this year, expired over the summer, and Carlyle is no longer pursuing the acquisition of these assets, Bloomberg reports, citing a company statement.

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio warned on October 8 that stocks are facing mounting pressure from rising bond yields and the prospect of worsening corporate cash flows, despite continued growth in corporate earnings, CNBC reports.
Details
Stocks have so far weathered the global bond sell-off successfully, as earnings growth has supported the appeal of equities’ expected returns relative to bonds, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio told CNBC. However, that advantage will shrink, he noted, potentially leaving stocks more vulnerable as financial conditions tighten.

Commodity markets were mixed on Tuesday. Brent crude held around $100 per barrel: the Middle East continues to pose risks to supply, but these are being offset by the recovery in exports from the region and the G7 decision to release emergency reserves. Gold fell due to a strong dollar and rising US bond yields. Copper rose for the third consecutive day amid a rally in the technology sector.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an “order on a special decision regarding the reorganization” of the Russian-registered joint-stock company UniCredit Bank, part of the Italian financial group UniCredit. A copy of the document was published on Russia’s legal information portal on Monday, October 5.

Consumer confidence in Australia deteriorated sharply: households are increasingly concerned about their financial situation, economic outlook and employment amid mounting cost-of-living pressures, according to Westpac data published on Tuesday.

U.S. and Russian talks on Ukraine have “expanded” and now include the fate of the foreign assets of “Lukoil,” which the company was forced to put up for sale due to sanctions, the newspaper The New York Times reported, citing sources.
According to their information, the question was first raised by Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting with the U.S. president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at the Kremlin on September 5. According to one of the publication’s interlocutors, Putin proposed to see the deal through to prove that Russians can do business with the United States. The American negotiators promised to take up the matter, seeing in it a way to both win the Kremlin’s favor and lower global energy resource prices, the source said.

The countries of the “Group of Seven” (G7) agreed to release 100 million barrels of crude oil and diesel fuel from strategic reserves within four months, and also to refrain from restricting oil exports. On Friday, October 2, French President Emmanuel Macron said this, The Wall Street Journal reports. The measure is aimed at lowering rapidly rising diesel fuel prices and other petroleum product prices, the newspaper notes.

President Donald Trump intends to announce a South Korean investment initiative in the United States worth $200 billion, the key element of which will be a $54 billion investment in the long-delayed liquefied natural gas project in Alaska, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter.

South Korea’s trade surplus expanded to a record $23 billion in the first 20 days of September, amid faster exports supported by semiconductor shipments, as well as a sharp rise in car and auto parts exports, Goldman Sachs reports.
Exports per working day increased by 7.4% on a month-on-month basis, taking seasonal fluctuations into account, accelerating from 4.1% in the previous month. Total exports over the first 20 days rose by 14.9% versus 7.2% earlier.

The U.S. Federal Reserve System wants to raise the thresholds for the size of assets after which large banks come under enhanced supervision, Reuters sources said. This would allow some credit institutions to avoid costly additional regulation and could spur consolidation in the banking sector, the agency writes. It named the specific banks that would benefit from this.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (New York:JPM) plans to double the volume of its business in GIFT City over the next few years, increasing investments in India’s sole international financial hub, Bloomberg reports citing Max Neukirchen, global co-head of payments.
“We’ve been working there for four years and serve several hundred clients, while the business is growing significantly,” Neukirchen said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. According to him, the bank is expanding its trade finance and foreign exchange business, as well as adding liquidity and payments solutions.