United States

With the upcoming US presidential election, we’ve added a monthly dataset from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that tracks the number of encounters at various land borders.

This dataset covers multiple dimensions:

• Land border
• Citizenship
• Characteristics of the encounter: single adults, single minors, accompanied minors, individuals as part of a family unit.

In the chart below, we focus specifically on the southwest land border, i.e. the US-Mexico border, has been subjected to ongoing debates and policy changes regarding immigration and border security.

The top pane presents data as a three-month rolling sum, from which a three-month percent change is calculated, including contributions from select citizenships. The second pane displays the number of encounters throughout the calendar year.

Russia

In 2022, Russian government agencies stopped publishing detailed foreign trade statistics by country, making it difficult for analysts to evaluate the country’s economic conditions. However, the central bank has started to disclose the proportion of foreign trade transactions conducted in the Chinese yuan.

As this chart shows, the yuan was seldom used as currency for foreign trade transactions before the invasion of Ukraine. In February 2022, the yuan accounted for only 0.26% of Russian exports.

Since then, there has been a significant increase in its use. The yuan now facilitates more than 30% of Russia’s foreign trade transactions, indicating a notable shift in geopolitical alliances. This trend underscores the growing use of the yuan as a payment option among emerging economies and highlights stronger ties between Russia and China.

China

Data from the “Statistics bulletin on freight supervision,” provided by the Chinese General Administration of Customs (CAGC), is now available. This dataset monitors the number of vehicles entering and exiting Chinese borders for freight purposes.

In the chart below, we calculated the month-over-month changes in freight traffic at the border, along with contributions from various modes of transport. Naturally, truck traffic dominates. In March 2023, freight traffic increased by 8.5% from the previous month, suggesting a potentially positive development for foreign trade activities.

Sweden

We have expanded our coverage of the Swedish real estate market by including the “SBAB Boprisindikator.” This housing survey enables users to track homeowners’ price expectations for one and three years into the future.

The pie chart below displays the latest survey results as of Q1 2024. It shows that the vast majority of homeowners currently expect house prices to either remain stable or increase slightly over the next 12 months.