Can we afford to be more optimistic about the future? The next seven days begin more positively for global geopolitics with a visit by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to South Korea and Japan.
He will travel from Seoul to Tokyo on Monday to strengthen the transatlantic security alliance’s ties with its main partners in Asia. These meetings, which follow the participation for the first time of Japan and South Korea in NATO’s European summits, demonstrate the alliance’s support for these countries in the face of the security challenges posed by China and Korea. North.
The war in Ukraine will be high on the agenda, with Tokyo and Seoul likely to confirm the release of additional non-lethal equipment for Kyiv.
A schoolgirl stands next to a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Ahmedabad © Amit Dave/Reuters
On the other hand, this week will also provide reminders of the ongoing and very real challenge posed by populism and nationalists. India commemorates Martyrs’ Day on Monday on the 75th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. As writer Ramachandra Guha notes in his essay on FT Weekend, reverence for the anti-colonial revolutionary has diminished as Hindu nationalism has grown.
In the United States, the figure of former President Donald Trump will once again loom large as his adviser Peter Navarro is set to stand trial on Monday for his failure to comply with a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. .
In the UK, it’s yet another week of strikes, starting on Monday with driving instructors from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. The biggest day of action will come on Wednesday when teachers, train drivers and university professors lower the tools as trade union body the TUC stage a day to protect the right to strike in opposition to a proposed strike. Controversial government law aimed at curbing industrial action on essential services.
Economic data
Rate-setting calendars aligned again for the monetary policy committees of the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Bank of England.
The ECB is expected to stick to extra-wide rate hikes while the Fed is backsliding, after signaling it would end its 0.75 percentage point rate hike in December.
The Bank of England is expected to impose a 0.5 percentage point hike, due to the stubborn persistence of high inflation, strong wage growth and the unexpected resilience of the UK economy.
Companies
Big tech companies including Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Meta and Spotify report quarterly results © Mike Segar/Reuters
We’re in the thick of earnings season and this week is Big Tech’s peak with quarterly numbers from Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Meta and Spotify. It’s been a sobering time for the industry, including the admission that they massively overhired during the Zoom years of the pandemic.
Apple will be notable given that it is expected to break a 14-quarter growth streak in the lucrative December period due to a shortage of high-end iPhones. A November Covid-19 outbreak at the factory in Zhengzhou (locally known as iPhone City) is to blame, creating a handset shortage of around 5-10 million units.
At around $1,000 a pop, that equates to a hiccup of $10 billion, and that’s not good news for Apple given its handset war with Google. Revenue this quarter in 2021 was less than $124 billion; the forecast is slightly lower for 2022, but the impact on net profit could be greater.
Read the full schedule for the week ahead here.