Questioning the consensus

The soft-landing consensus that emerged toward the end of last year has come under increased scrutiny in recent days. Specifically, there are now more doubts about the notion that central banks will shift towards a much more accommodative monetary policy in the coming months. In this week's charts, we look more closely at consensus views for 2024. More specifically, we home in on:

·         The still-high influence of data surprises for markets

·         The US growth consensus versus other major economies

·         The inflation consensus for China versus Japan

·         Concerns in the US small company sector

·         Healthier high frequency indicators from China

·         Healthier data for global trade