The incoming data over this week have painted a more downbeat picture of the global economic outlook. But despite these weaker signals, financial markets have taken this news in their stride, possibly due to growing confidence that central banks will still manage to engineer a soft landing for the global economy. In our charts this week we home in on:

·       The global business cycle

·       US and European consumer confidence

·       The UK manufacturing sector

·       Policy stimulus initiatives from China

·       Goods and services inflation in advanced economies

·       AI and work automation