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Paul Krugman has already had to walk back his prediction of a global recession following Donald Trump’s presidential victory last night. His initial post on the New York Times’ website was confidently apocalyptic about the prospects of Donald Trump plunging the world into a depression: “If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.” He concluded by saying, “So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight. I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened.” Markets rebounded in...

If Republican nominee and real estate billionaire mogul Donald Trump pulls out an impossible victory against Hillary Clinton in November then prepare yourself for a global recession. This is the latest warning from Citigroup. The financial institution believes that markets would enter into chaos and the global economy would collapse because of policy uncertainty. Here is what Citi Chief Economist Willem Buiter opines (courtesy of Bloomberg): “A Trump victory in particular could prolong and perhaps exacerbate policy uncertainty and deliver a shock (though perhaps short-lived) to financial markets. Tightening financial conditions and further rises in uncertainty could trigger a significant...

For Caterpillar, the great recession was bad, for about 19 months. In May 2010, after declining sharply for just under two years, CAT posted it first positive global retail sales comps and never looked back... until December 2012 when comp sales once again turned negative and have been negative ever since. For the past 41 months! The breakdown showed that contrary to popular opinion, there has been no pick up in demand for heavy industrial machinery anywhere around the globe.

When the global economy is doing well, the amount of stuff that is imported and exported around the world goes up, and when the global economy is in recession, the amount of stuff that is imported and exported around the world goes down. It is just basic economics. Governments around the world have become very adept at manipulating other measures of economic activity such as GDP, but the trade numbers are more difficult to fudge. Today, China accounts for more global trade than anyone else on the entire planet, and we have just learned that Chinese exports and Chinese imports...

The biggest bank in the western world has just come out and declared that the global economy is “already in a recession”. According to British banking giant HSBC, global trade is down 8.4 percent so far this year, and global GDP expressed in U.S. dollars is down 3.4 percent. So those that are waiting for the next worldwide economic recession to begin can stop waiting. It is officially here. As you will see below, money is fleeing emerging markets at a blistering pace, major global banks are stuck with huge loans that will never be repaid, and it looks like...

China's central bank cut lending rates for the fourth time since November and trimmed the amount of cash that some banks must hold as reserves, stepping up efforts to support an economy that is headed for its poorest performance in a quarter century. Saturday's combined easing highlights Beijing's concerns that money isn't flowing to some of the most-needed sectors in the economy and that stubbornly high borrowing costs that could fuel bankruptcies and job losses. The last time the central bank simultaneously cut interest rates and reserve requirements was at the height of the global financial crisis in late 2008....

The world economy is disturbingly close to stall speed. The United Nations has cut its global growth forecast for this year to 2.8pc, the latest of the multinational bodies to retreat. It leaves a thin safety buffer against any economic shock - most potently if China abandons its crawling dollar peg and resorts to 'beggar-thy-neighbour' policies, transmitting a further deflationary shock across the global economy. ... Each of the past four US recoveries has been weaker than the last one. The average growth rate has fallen from 4.5pc in the early 1980s to nearer 2pc this time. ... The US...

Recessions are deepening across the globe. Futures sagged today after GDP numbers for several countries fell. Japan's economy continued to shrink in the fourth quarter by 0.1%, a narrower dive from a 1.0% fall in the third quarter. Economists expected Japan to show a small amount of growth. Germany's contraction helped deepen the recession in the eurozone. German GDP dropped 0.6%, mostly on weak export demand. The eurozone economy as a whole shrank 0.6%, the fastest rate since 2009. For the full year, the eurozone showed sub-zero growth. The French economy fared worse than expected as well, contracting by 0.3%...

The global economic recovery is weakening as government policies have failed to restore confidence, the International Monetary Fund has said. It added that the risk of further deterioration in the economic outlook was "considerable" and had increased. The IMF downgraded its estimate for global growth in 2013 to 3.6% from the 3.9% it forecast in July. One of the biggest downgrades was to the UK economy, which the IMF expects to shrink by 0.4% this year. This compares its forecast of 0.2% growth in July. Next year, the UK economy should grow by 1.1%, the IMF said, down from its...

Global Growth Has Collapsed Joe WeisenthalSep. 25, 2012, 5:44 AMThe below chart comes from Morgan Stanley's latest Strategy Forum deck, and though it's simple, we suspect a lot of people haven't seen it yet, or really haven't made the connection between the chart and other big economic stories of the day. This is the chart that's causing warnings from FedEx. This is the chart that's contributed to the collapse of the Shanghai Composite. This is the why the Baltic Dry Index is down 60% this year. It's why US manufacturing indices are giving off the weakest signs of the economy....

CHICAGO (AP) -- Failure by Congress to raise the U.S. debt limit "could plunge the world economy back into recession," President Barack Obama declared Friday, and he acknowledged that he must compromise on spending with Republicans who control the House to avoid such a crisis. "I think he's absolutely right that it's not going to happen without some spending cuts," the president told The Associated Press in an interview in his hometown, agreeing with House Speaker John Boehner's assessment. Obama urged swift action, saying he doesn't want the United States to get close to a deadline that would destabilize financial...

China's banks will feel full impact of crisis in 2009 By Wang Lan (chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2008-12-26 19:52 The full impact of the global economic recession is expected to be felt by China's banking sector in the first half of 2009, Chinese bankers said today. Ma Weihua, president and CEO of China Merchants Bank, said at a financial conference held today in Beijing, that the global economic downturn would hurt earnings of China's commercial banks in the first half of 2009. Ma attributed the eroded profit of Chinese banks to a combination of factors, including narrowing interest rate spread, increasing provisions...

Toyota to suffer 1.1 billion dollar loss for 2nd half: reports Sat Dec 13, 1:32 am ET TOKYO (AFP) – Japanese auto giant Toyota is likely to suffer a 1.1 billion dollar loss for the second half of the current fiscal year due to a stronger yen and a global industry slump, news reports said Saturday. Toyota Motor Corp. is likely to incur an operating loss of some 100 billion yen (1.1 billion dollars) for the six months to March next year, the Asahi Shimbun and Kyodo News said. It would be Totota's first interim operating loss since the company...

As European leaders gather in Rome on Friday to sign the new EU constitution, many companies will be focusing on matters much closer to home - namely now to stay in business. In several countries, unemployment is high, while the euro seems to have done little to increase trade and wealth in the eurozone. BBC Economics Correspondent Jonty Bloom has been gauging the mood of some European businesses. Lille is a popular tourist destination for Britons who want a taste of France at the weekend. But how many tourists look at the impressively grand Victorian Chambre de Commerce, which stands...

<p>German Economy Disappoints, Threatening Pace of European Growth March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Germany's economy is disappointing economists, investors and executives for a fourth year, crimping growth across the 12 nations sharing the euro.</p> <p>In January, business confidence surged to a three-year high as demand from abroad pulled Europe's largest economy out of recession. Two months later, stagnant consumer spending prompted economists including Morgan Stanley's Elga Bartsch, Gustav Horn of the Berlin-based DIW institute and Silvia Pepino of J.P. Morgan to lower their growth forecasts.</p>

Recession fears grip eurozone as output falters By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels (Filed: 15/03/2004) The eurozone is on economic alert this week after a clutch of dismal figures from France and Germany heightened fears of a slide back into recession. French industrial production slumped 0.5pc in January, confounding predictions of robust growth as the US-led recovery gathers pace worldwide. German output slipped 0.1pc, prompting a gloomy warning from Bundesbank chief Ernst Welteke. "The risks of an economic deterioration are definitely greater than the chances of improvement in Europe and Germany," he said. After facing the full brunt of dollar devaluation,...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Just days after China's premier promised parliament he would find work for over 14 million people, the country's labour minister said unemployment remained a grim problem that would not be solved for years to come. Premier Wen Jiabao opened the annual session of parliament last week with a pledge to create nine million new urban jobs in 2004 and re-employ five million jobless as China struggles to keep a lid on the number of unemployed for fear of social unrest. But Labour and Social Security Minister Zheng Silin yesterday admitted that...

<p>European Economies: DIW Cuts German Growth Forecast (Update1) March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Germany's DIW economic institute cut its first-quarter growth forecast, saying there are still no clear signs that a recovery is taking hold in Europe's largest economy.</p> <p>The economy will muster growth of just 0.1 percent, the Berlin-based DIW said in its weekly report, lowering its prediction from a previous 0.4 percent. That would represent a slowdown from 0.2 percent in the final quarter of last year.</p>

<p>European Economies: German January Production Falls (Update1) March 9 (Bloomberg) -- German industrial production declined in January, led by a drop in construction, the fourth report in the past two weeks to indicate Europe's largest economy is struggling to pick up pace.</p>

Gloom grows over European growth Morale at German firms has fallen Europe's nascent economic recovery has been dealt a blow by reports that show confidence waning in Germany and Italy. The key Ifo poll of German executives unexpectedly fell in February, while a survey of Italian consumers recorded its lowest ever reading. Economists cited the strength of the euro and accounting scandals as some of the reasons behind the mood change. There was better news from France where retail spending rose by 2% in January, four times the normal monthly average. Currency woes However, French shoppers were lured to the...