After reporting a notable pullback in U.S. pending home sales in the previous month, the National Association of Realtors released a report on Monday showing pending home sales rebounded by much more than expected in the month of October. NAR said its pending home sales index spiked by 7.5 percent to 125.2 in October after tumbling by 2.4 percent to […]

Americans are so politically polarised that voters’ stated views on the economy’s health are now shaped overwhelmingly by which party they identify with. Back in the 1980s Ronald Reagan era, or even in the heady pre-crisis boom of 2006 under George W Bush, Republicans were unsurprisingly more upbeat about economic conditions than Democrats. But the gap in judgments by party […]

Europe’s energy crunch has returned with a winter vengeance. We are back to warnings of power rationing and industrial stoppage, a looming disaster for the European Commission and the British government alike. Vladimir Putin has tightened his stranglehold on gas, driving up futures contracts for January by 40 per cent in barely a week. Prices are nearing the levels of […]

The Reserve Bank is counting on Australian exceptionalism or, more bluntly, a healthy dose of isolation. The central bank is going to great pains to distance the economy from the faster inflation that’s led policy makers from Wellington to Oslo to raise interest rates, or intimate that hikes are on the way. Governor Philip Lowe may be the first chief […]