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Commodities Market Strategy Oil

Market focus: How tight is the US oil market?

Overall, crude oil inventories have moved back to their pre-COVID levels but gasoline inventories are still at the higher end of the 2015-2019 range. This has happened despite US refinery intake of crude oil still being below the pre-COVID 5-years range and after a severe production disruption in February 2021 as a result of an exceptional cold wave. Bottom line: the current level of oil prices is far from guaranteed. The reality check could be sobering, especially if the delta variant proves to be disruptive for the global recovery and if OPEC/OPEC+ does not manage to keep to its 2020 playbook

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Economy ENG Eurozone Macro Analysis

Macro Focus: Economic impact of Lockdowns 2.0

In order to contain the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, most European countries have implemented new lock-downs starting from Mid-October.  As the Chart of the Week with data extracted from Google Mobility shows, the new “soft lockdowns” were overall significantly softer than the “hard lockdowns” implemented to contain the first wave of the pandemic, earlier this year in […]

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ENG Video ENG

TV Interview (RT International): New Lockdowns in Europe

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ENG Macro Analysis

Macro Focus: Impact of COVID-19 on E-Commerce sales

The Census Bureau of the US Department of Commerce announced on August 18 that U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the second quarter of 2020, adjusted for seasonal variation, was $211.5 billion, an increase of 31.8 percent from the first quarter of 2020.

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Business Intelligence ENG Russia & FSU

Business & Geopolitics: A Welcome Stimulus for Russia’s Sovereign Tech Sector

The Russian Tech sector has witnessed a remarkable development over the last twenty years, moving out of a soviet state-led institutional and technological matrix into a beacon for flagship tech companies such as Kaspersky Lab, Telegram, Yandex and Ozon. The COVID-19 pandemic and recession presents both challenges and opportunities for Russia’s tech players.

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Economy ENG Other G20 / Global

The long view: Apocalypse now? The outlook for the global economy after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Willl the Covid-19 reshape the global economy? What are the most important hotspots and the blindspots revealed by this crisis? We tackle this issue in this article. Beyond the handling of the health crisis and the exceptional support measures designed to ensure that hundreds of millions or even billions of people around the world do not lose their livelihoods overnight, the most worrying concern are the medium- and long-term consequences of the crisis for the global economy.