After more than a year of war, Israel’s venture capital ecosystem has proved resilient, but the conflict with Hamas is set to have a lasting impact on its future.

U.S. M&A deal activity increased in September, going up 4.6% with 986 announcements compared to 943 in August. Aggregate M&A spending increased as well. In September 9.3% more was spent on deals compared to August.

In the past many years there were lots of discussion about the predictive power of the yield curve. Deeply inverted yield curve have been always a precursor of an impending economic recession and it is especially true when it steepens very fast. It is important to take a deeper look on it now, when the inversion of 2/10 years bond yields is the longest ever period in the history of bond market.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the U.S. fell by 1.2 percent in March 2023 to 108.4 (2016=100), following a decline of 0.5 percent in February. The LEI is down 4.5 percent over the six-month period between September 2022 and March 2023—a steeper rate of decline than its 3.5 percent contraction over the previous six months (March–September 2022).

FactSet’s U.S. Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) data suggested continued weakness in the M&A markets as 2022 progressed. After running down roughly 20% in the first half, deal counts were down 40% year/year by November with some acceleration in the decline as the year ended.

U.S. M&A deal activity decreased in December, going down 13.2% with 1,089 announcements compared to 1,255 in November. Aggregate M&A spending decreased as well. In December, 54.8% less was spent on deals compared to November.

Top 10 economic predictions for 2023 made by S&P Global Market Intelligence