Merida Industry Co. Ltd. (9914.TW) is the second largest Taiwanese company in the leisure products industry that focuses on the manufacturing and production of bicycles and e-bikes. COVID-19 resulted in a structural change in transportation habits last year, as individuals avoided public transport and focused on health and wellness. Growing demand for bicycle and e-bike transportation in key markets including China, Europe and U.S. is creating a positive outlook for this bicycle manufacturer. Merida Industry is featured in our Asia FY 2020 Earnings Predictions, where we forecast companies that are likely to beat or miss earnings expectations using Refinitiv StarMine

Despite COVID-19, foreign beach holidays may still be on the cards for Europeans this summer. Many countries plan to open their borders to intra-European travel from 15 June. For tourist hotspots, such a move is perhaps being driven partly by economics. In Greece, Portugal and Spain, net tourism exports account for 8.1%, 7.3% and 3.8% of GDP, respectively. In Europe, Germany and the UK are large net importers of international tourism, while China is the world’s largest source of travel demand. Refresh this chart in your browser | Edit the chart in Datastream __________________________________________________________________________________ Datastream Financial time series database which

The StarMine team has selected five North American companies, using Eikon Screener by Refinitiv, that we expect to miss 20Q1 earnings estimates, based on StarMine SmartEstimate® and Predicted Surprise data from Refinitiv. Our North American selections for 2019 Q4 negative Predicted Surprises were 80% accurate, which can be viewed here. Historically (since 2011 Q4), our negative Predicted Surprise picks have demonstrated an accuracy rate of about 64.8%, giving investors an edge ahead of earnings announcements. Our North American picks for negative Predicted Surprises in 2020 Q1 are — Navistar International Corp (NAV.N), Capri Holdings Ltd (CPRI.N), Ford Motor Co (F.N), Sabre Corp (SABR.O), and Cinemark

On March 8, we published “Earnings Roundup: Will COVID-19 Lead to Lower Earnings?” Based on an updated review of analyst revisions data, it now seems clear that we are. The S&P 500 is expected to enter an earnings recession, which is defined as two consecutive quarters of year-over-year (Y/Y) earnings declines, starting in 20Q1. Analysts also anticipate that full year 2020 earnings will fall 2.0%. This outlook is meaningfully different from the pre-COVID-19 and crude oil price war view at the end of January. With earnings season quickly approaching, the question now is, should investors expect further downward earnings revisions?

Fathom has suggested that the fallout from COVID-19 would lead to the biggest economic shock since the 1930s. Economic data released over the past couple of weeks help to confirm that view. Thursday’s release of US initial jobless claims showed an unprecedented spike to 3.3 million in a single week. That sort of number is multiples of the peak during the Global Financial Crisis. The US labour market has been put on sudden stop. Refresh the chart in your browser | Edit the chart in Datastream The initial weekly spike reflects unprecedented government restrictions on movement, and the shutdown of non-essential shops

Reports of the increase in jobless claims in certain states is consistent with the US unemployment rate increasing by around 2 percentage points in a single week — a figure that is more than double the largest ever monthly increase. That scale of increase is consistent with reported figures coming out of Ireland. According to Okun’s Law, that sort of jump would normally be associated with GDP being 4% below potential. However, investors would be wise to not extrapolate and think that this recession will be orders of magnitude worse than the in 2008 and 2009. This downturn is unusual

Subscribe here to receive Fathom’s daily Recession Watch newsletter, and opt in to join Fathom’s weekly Recession Watch Forum and participate in lively discussions with our team and others in the community. Next forum date: Monday 23 March 2020, 4:00pm GMT Headlines US initial jobless claims rose by a near record amount last week; they could rise by three million this week, indicating the negative shock to the US economy could be the largest on record The governor of California ordered the state’s 40m residents to stay at home. New York could be next. It is worse affected than the

Our central case now calls for a steep global recession in the first half of 2020, but there is an exceptionally high degree of uncertainty around that call and a high degree of variation across countries in terms of timing, severity, and the policy response. To help our clients navigate through these turbulent waters, we are introducing a daily Recession Watch note, starting today. The main purpose of this note is to help understand how severe the recession is, and how long it is likely to last. The first means tracking the data; the second means creating metrics that will

Last week’s post discussed the Federal Reserve’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak and considered its possible path forward. Since then, we have seen a monetary response elsewhere. Fellow G7 central banks in Canada and the UK followed the US lead and cut by 50 basis points. The Bank of England also announced cheap funding to encourage bank lending, as well as a reduction in the cyclical component of banks’ capital requirement ratio. As mentioned last week, there remains some uncertainty about the correct way for monetary authorities to respond to the fallout from COVID-19 given that it is likely to