IMF Slashes Global Growth Outlook Again, Warning “Of Great Challenges” In Year Ahead
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
01/19/2016
Three months ago, we noted that if there’s anything the IMF is good at, it’s cutting global growth forecasts, something the Fund did for the fourth time in twelve months in October.
Of course the IMF wasn’t alone in adopting an increasingly dour outlook for global growth and trade. The WTO, the ADB, and the OECD all suggested that worldwide commerce was effectively grinding to a halt last year. “It’s almost like the timing belt on the global growth engine is a bit off or the cylinders are not firing as they should,” WTO chief economist Robert Koopman remarked, late last summer.
Well, things haven’t gotten any better since then. The downturn in key emerging markets like Brazil and Russia has intensified and China’s hard landing is upon us (remember, even if you believe the NBS’ “official” GDP data, China’s deflator has now been negative in three of the last four quarters which certainly suggests the books are being cooked, so to speak). Meanwhile, there are worrying signs that America’s double-adjusted “recovery” has stalled out altogether as freight volumes fell Y/Y for the first time in three years in November, a month in which Class 8 truck sales collapsed 59% Y/Y and 36% M/M.
And then there is of the course the Baltic Dry which is, well, flatlining, having fallen below 400 last week.
Now, in the latest sign that sluggish global growth and trade have become endemic and structural rather than fleeting and cyclical, the IMF has once again cut its global growth forecasts, citing a year of “great challenges.”
The Rest…HERE
