Economy

At the end of 2016, global sector trends remained mixed, including in the regions that until now have been relatively spared by the increase in risks. Over the whole year, across 12 sectors…

The central theme of the RiskMap 2017 is the challenge to globalisation and free trade and how businesses can adapt and thrive in these changing times. Donald Trump’s triumph in the United States…

It has been another crazy week on the political and financial market front. Donald Trump's unexpected win on Tuesday sent shockwaves across global markets with everything from currencies and…

A four-week commodity rally has come to a halt as the dollar continues to strengthen. The euro, the world's most actively traded currency against the greenback, dropped below €1.09 to hit its…

Commodities from an index perspective were close to flat on the week. Behind this perceived calm, however, some major developments unfolded – as can be seen in the table below.

Crude oil…

Commodities showed broad-based gains during a week that was driven by central bank action or perhaps (as it turned out) no action at all. The "hawkish no hike" from the Federal Open Market…

Precious metals have been back on the defensive this past week with the shake-out in both bonds and stocks hurting the general level of the appetite for risk in the market. Next week's central…

The Bloomberg Commodity Index, which tracks the performance of 20 major commodities split evenly between energy, metals and agriculture, continues to show a gain of more than 10% in the year to…

I am writing this chronicle from South Africa which is almost as far away from Europe and the constant and never ending Brexit talk as you can come. It's hard even here to avoid the turbulence…

Since the international growth scenario announced by Coface last March, prospects have deteriorated slightly, and growth would appear to remain below 3% in 2016 for the 6th consecutive year.…

Commodities continued their strong ascent with broad-based gains across most sectors with the exception of industrial metals. Towards the end of another strong week, however, some profit taking…

The commodity sector was trading close to unchanged for a second week. Weakness in energy and especially precious metals was offset by gains across the agriculture and industrial metal sectors. …

Supply chain resilience is vital to robust business performance. Threats to resilience—such as depressed oil prices, natural catastrophes and the spread of terrorism—are keeping financial…

Commodity markets had a strong week with broad-based gains seen across a sector that has been under siege for quite some time. The Bloomberg Commodity index rose 2.4% with metals – both precious…

January proved to be a very volatile month for commodities and the final week was no exception, with the oil market continuing to attract most of the attention. Speculation of a so far…

Two-thirds of CEOs (66%) see more threats facing their businesses today than three years ago.  Just over a quarter (27%) believe global growth will improve over the next 12 months, a decline of…

The energy sector suffered its worst weekly setback since June 2011 as the imminent return of Iranian crude and milder weather in the US sent oil and natural gas sharply lower. These…

The risk landscape for businesses is substantially changing in 2016. While businesses are less concerned about the impact of traditional industrial risks such as natural catastrophes or fire,…