What will 2014 be like?
Expansion at a moderate pace
Global growth forecasts have been revised down significantly
With the six BRIICS alone now accounting for 30% of world GDP (at PPP rates) and 15% of global equity markets, a slowdown in EMEs has larger effects on the global economy than in the past, via trade and financial cross-border linkages.
There are weaker prospects in many emerging market economies (EMEs). The United States came close to a potentially catastrophic crisis associated with its legislative ceiling on federal government debt. Tensions within the euro area could erupt again.
The hare and the turtle
In the euro area, recovery is lagging and uneven, unemployment –
especially among the young – remains very high and inflationary pressures are very subdued.
Stress tests and confidence
A house divided against itself cannot stand: Ineqiuality in OECD countries
Is globalisation the main culprit in higher wage inequality?Trade
Who cares about PISA? Education
Geopolitical Risks: Let's wage a war
Europe
- The EU in 2014 – The political hangover of economic recovery
- Russia – The calculated gamble of the Winter Olympics in Sochi
- Turkey – A difficult year ahead
- Brazil – Security concerns at the 2014 FIFA World Cup
- Mexico – Mexico’s national security policy and persistent violence
- United States – The threat of terrorism from within
- Syria – Long-term political and security challenges
- Iraq – Al-Qaeda in Iraq’s resurgence
- Egypt – The persistent cycle of political uncertainty and instability
- Afghanistan – Repercussions of the NATO withdrawal
- China – Increasing labour protests in the People’s Republic
- India – Will the recent creation of new states galvanise other separatist movements?
- The Sahel – A new frontier of terrorism?
- Mozambique – Concerns over a new civil war as RENAMO ‘returns to the bush’
- Kenya – Was Westgate a sign of things to come?
Political risk is rapidly increasing for countries in East Africa and the Middle East. A report by Maplecroft report evaluates 197 countries on a number of factors -- such as terrorism, conflict, regime stability and resource nationalism -- in order to categorize the nations on a risk scale from "low" to "extreme."
Certain countries on the top of the list, such as Somalia and Syria, may come as no surprise, given the ongoing conflicts there. Since the Arab Spring, Syria has rapidly climbed the list -- from 44th out of 197 countries in 2010, to second place in the latest atlas.
Though Libya dropped a few spots on the list from last year's ranking, the African state remained among the top 10 countries with the greatest political risk.
For the first time, Egypt joined the top 15, nearing the ranks of the 11 countries Maplecroft considers extremely at risk. In a statement, the firm attributed this new ranking to Egypt's "post-coup violence and increased terrorist activity in the Sinai Peninsula."
"This ‘vicious circle’ reflects the self-reinforcing impact of extremely poor governance, conflict, high levels of corruption, persistent regime instability and societal dissent and protest," the risk analytics firm said in a statement.
Despite significant increases of political risk in the Middle East and parts of Africa, the report said that some countries have made considerable gains. The Philippines (No. 35), India (No. 47), Uganda (No. 50) and Israel (No. 118) all saw decreases in their political risk level over the past three years. Meanwhile, the United States, United Kingdom and Scandinavian countries were all classified as having a low risk.
The Digital Divide
Native advertising, or advertising content in the context of the user's experience, will be all the rage. Buzzfeed? The metrics of content are engagement and time spent. Why do they do it?
Techno
Deloitte: an emerging class of patent pirates and new avenues to raise capital (crowdfunding), a third mobile operating platform to rival iOS and Android
Computerworld: In the next three to five years, the five technologies most likely to
upset the status quo are social networking, the cloud and software as a
service (SaaS), self-service IT, predictive analytics and mobile
payments
CHASM: the Top 5 hot areas next year: Connection, Hybrid, Analytics, SDX, and Mobile (CHASM).
- Connection: The Internet of everything enables people, devices and everybody objects to be connected on Internet, which has been changing our life styles. Lightweight technologies such as MQTT will facilitate the use of wearable/embedded devices and sensors in constrained networks.
- Hybrid: Cloud computing continues to expand, particularly in the field of the hybrid cloud that combines the benefits and strengths of both private and public cloud. Dynamic provisioning becomes a must. Personal clouds are emerging to phase out local hard drives, and make it easy for seamless UX using multiple devices or platforms.
- Analytics: Big data grows more advanced to support real-time processing and data streaming via in-memory systems. Social analysis and telematics will gain momentum. Prescriptive and predictive analytics tend to help business harness the real values of big data by means of machine learning and sophisticated data science.
- SDX: Software-Defined Networking (SDN) will go beyond just the network. A series of software-defined anything (e.g. SDS for storage and SDDC for data center) will further abstract the physical layer and make the infrastructure more programmable to blur the line between hardware and software. API becomes the glue to integrate and manage resources on the fly.
- Mobile: More mobile applications will leverage HTML 5 for portability and interoperability across devices. Features like mobile advertisement and mobile payments will mature to be widely used in a trajectory of surpassing other channels.
CAPITAL MARKETS: “The trees are growing, but not blossoming“
Summary by DeutscheBank: Central banks-the power factor
- Economy: Developed nations will drive global growth
- Equities: Gains globally, but less than in 2013 and with higher volatility
- Bonds: Normalization of interest rates; real positive returns in a few markets
- Foreign exchange: US dollar fundamentally strong
- Alternative assets: No real estate bubble in Germany
- Asset allocation: European equities are the top pick
Goldman's 6 trades here
The Economist on Bulgaria:
GDP growth: 2.2%
GDP per head: $7,530 (PPP: $14,400)
Inflation: 2.3%
Budget balance (% GDP) -1.8
Population: 7.2m
The ruling alliance between the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) lacks a clear majority in the legislature and relies on the ultra-nationalist Ataka (Attack) party to govern, weakening its legitimacy at home and abroad. Formed in May 2013 after public protest toppled its predecessor, the BSP/MRF government is unlikely to see out its four-year term, and 2014 may prove to be the second election year in succession. Rising domestic spending will help to revive the economy, but it will lack its pre-crisis effervescence.
To watch: Underground movement. The Balkan Speleological Conference, to be held in Sofia in March, will celebrate the 85th anniversary of organised speleo-logy in Bulgaria. Just don’t call it a summit meeting.
__________________________________________________________ GDP per head: $7,530 (PPP: $14,400)
Inflation: 2.3%
Budget balance (% GDP) -1.8
Population: 7.2m
The ruling alliance between the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) lacks a clear majority in the legislature and relies on the ultra-nationalist Ataka (Attack) party to govern, weakening its legitimacy at home and abroad. Formed in May 2013 after public protest toppled its predecessor, the BSP/MRF government is unlikely to see out its four-year term, and 2014 may prove to be the second election year in succession. Rising domestic spending will help to revive the economy, but it will lack its pre-crisis effervescence.
To watch: Underground movement. The Balkan Speleological Conference, to be held in Sofia in March, will celebrate the 85th anniversary of organised speleo-logy in Bulgaria. Just don’t call it a summit meeting.
Speleology: the study of caves and other karst features
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