Today’s chart is actually a table. But I think it does a great job illustrating the way global growth expectations have changed in the last 6 months. The expectations for the second half of 2012 and for 2013 have both been lowered in most regions of the world. Here’s the table from Morgan Stanley Research, courtesy of FtAlphaville:
Two things stood out to me in this table. The first is that the BRICs have seen the largest decrease in their growth expectations for both 2012 and 2013. Not surprisingly, the China growth story encompasses all of them linked together for growth, and they all seem to move up and down together. The second thing that stood out to me was the cut in U.S. growth expectations for 2013, from 2.1% in March to 1.4% today. Both Europe and the U.K. have seen a cut in their growth projections of close to 1%, but given the outperformance of the U.S. since the summer of 2011, the market is pricing in a sort of safe haven American growth scenario. That looks increasingly unlikely, though markets are content to ignore any potential issues for now.