China’s economy had already been slowing before the recent intensification of the woes surrounding real estate developer Evergrande. A key focus for investors is the extent of the latter’s spillover to the broader housing market and economy. In August, floor space of newly started residential buildings fell by 1.7% on a year-on-year basis, while the land area acquired by real estate developers fell by around 10%. Sales of land are a crucial source of funds for local governments, equivalent to around 70% of their official revenues in 2019. So far, house price growth has slowed but has not moved into

As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of StarMine SmartEstimate®, we showcase how the financial modelling solution has continued to perform strongly and provide value to investors. The StarMine SmartEstimate (SE) is a reweighting of I/B/E/S analysts estimates. It places more weight on the more recent estimates and the more accurate analysts. Placing a greater weight on the estimates from the historically more accurate analysts on a particular company works because it’s a persistent skill. Analysts who have been the most accurate in the past are roughly four times as likely to remain among the most accurate than to drop to

There can be no doubt that ESG data is of growing importance to investors in the modern marketplace, being, as it is, an attempt to numerate the long-term material risks posed to an investment target by environmental, social and governance factors. Yet there are still investors who, for one reason or another, feel that the challenges posed by fully integrating ESG information into their investment decisions still outweighs the potential benefits. A recent webinar hosted by Refinitiv, formerly Thomson Reuters, and Responsible Investor saw four expert panelists explore some of these challenges in more depth. As surmised by Annie Bersagel,

Fathom’s UK Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI), which had been unusually stable for more than a year, fell from 0.5% in September, to 0.3% in both October and November. This latest reading is the weakest since the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum, held on 23 June 2016. It supports our view that the UK economy, boosted by a prolonged period of unseasonably warm weather through the spring and the summer, has slowed in recent months. We expect growth of just 0.1% in Q4. Refresh the chart in your browser | Edit chart in Datastream ______________________________________________________________________ Thomson Reuters Datastream Financial time series database