Articles

Key View: Improving economic growth and higher oil prices will continue to boost popular sentiment toward Norway's Conservative-led coalition government, offering greater flexibility in policy-making. However, immigration policy will remain a contentious issue within the coalition and could generate political instability in the coming quarters.

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Key View: While Switzerland's small, open and highly globalised economy has proved to be a safeguard against the backdrop of the tough economic conditions over the past decade, it now poses a risk as global trade tensions escalate. Indeed, we warn that Swiss policymakers have very little leverage should the US direct its attention at bilateral

Key View: We believe that the ongoing slump in Australian house prices does not bode well for the outlook for the banking sector over the coming quarters as credit growth weakens. This will be compounded by the low interest rate environment and increased oversight by regulators.

We are maintaining our long-held view that the outlook for Australian

Key Views:

• Spending cuts and uncertainty over the timing of overdue legislative elections will raise the risk of unrest in Gabon over the coming months.
• Cuts to public payrolls will likely undermine President Ali Bongo Ondimba's support among the political elite, likely bolstering the opposition's chances of running a competitive election

Key View:

• Grocery spending offers a new area of expansion for e-commerce majors, as consumers' demand for convenience prompts the expansion into other consumer sectors and delivery services.
• The latest e-commerce major to expand into the grocery sector is UAE-based noon.com which is looking for a partner to facilitate this move.

Forecasts:

Key View: Danish policy formation is likely to remain constrained by parliamentary fragmentation, even after the next scheduled elections in June 2019. The influence of the Danish People's Party implies that the increasingly populist leanings in government policy over the past few years will continue no matter whether the elections result in the

Key View:

• The first half of 2018 was a mixed bag for select European construction companies, with revenues falling for Ferrovial and only tepid revenue growth for Skanska and Grupo ACS.
• Of the five companies looked at, Vinci registered the most positive results, with net income rising by 26% year on year.
• Geographic diversification efforts

Key View:

• If imposed, higher tariffs on US LNG will drive-up the cost of China's ongoing state-led gasification efforts, particularly during the winter months when China's domestic gas demand, and with it the need for US LNG, peaks.
• In contrast, the impact on the US LNG industry will be fairly limited, as most of the US' current LNG exports are

Key View:

• Fastweb buying 3.5GHz spectrum hedges its bets around connectivity platforms
• Fibre key to exploiting digital economy innovations, but not exclusively so
• Low cost vital to building-up Italy's broadband market

Fastweb, the Italian broadband unit of Swisscom, has agreed to buy the fixed wireless broadband unit of erstwhile partner

Key View: Whilst existing Crohn's disease treatments are immunosuppressive, RedHill Biopharma's RHB-104 drug candidate is the first to attempt to target what the firm and others believe is the underlying cause of the disease: Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) infection. These Phase III results will encourage RedHill that it is