New York has retained the top spot among 69 cities worldwide in terms of rental costs for both one-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments, according to data from the Deutsche Bank Research Institute.
In the ranking of three-bedroom apartment rents, Zurich, San Francisco, Boston, and Singapore follow New York. London ranked eighth, Paris 21st, Frankfurt 30th, Tokyo 40th, and Seoul 44th.
The authors of the study point out that a high nominal salary does not always translate to high disposable income. New York ranks among the top five cities globally in terms of net wages, yet a significant portion of residents’ income is consumed by housing costs.
The contrast with Tokyo is particularly striking: renting a three-bedroom apartment in the Japanese capital costs about four times less than in New York.
Data from Deutsche Bank show that housing costs are becoming one of the main factors driving differences in real living standards among the world’s largest financial centers.
In 2026, Hong Kong remained the world’s most expensive city for purchasing a downtown apartment, according to the Deutsche Bank Research Institute’s study “Mapping the World’s Prices 2026.”
The average cost of housing in the city’s central districts is estimated at $27,753 per square meter. Zurich, Seoul, Singapore, and Geneva follow in the ranking. Despite a price decline of approximately 10% compared to pre-pandemic levels, Hong Kong retained its top spot.
Compared to the previous edition of the study, the average price per square meter in Hong Kong rose from $26,749 to $27,753. High real estate prices remain one of the main factors limiting housing affordability, even for city residents with relatively high incomes.
High real estate prices also affected Hong Kong’s ranking in the quality of life index. The city dropped from 48th to 55th place out of 69. Among other negative factors, the study’s authors cite air pollution and long commutes to work.
Analysts at Deutsche Bank have also improved their gold price forecasts for 2025 and 2026 amid geopolitical and foreign trade uncertainty, which is contributing to increased demand for the protective asset. Experts expect gold to cost an average of $3140 per troy ounce this year and $3700 per ounce in 2026. The previous forecast was $2725 and $2900 per ounce, respectively. At the end of 2025, experts estimate that gold will cost $3350 per ounce.
Deutsche Bank’s forecast for 2026 is the most optimistic among the world’s leading banks.
Quotes of June gold futures on the Comex exchange are growing by 1.6% – to $3022 per ounce. On the eve of the precious metal price fell below the psychologically important mark of $3000 per ounce.
One of the factors supporting gold is the active demand for precious metals from the central banks of the world. According to Deutsche Bank estimates, central banks now account for about 24% of global demand for gold against 10% in 2022.
Last week, HSBC analysts improved their gold price forecast for 2025 to $3015 per ounce, but in 2026 they expect quotes to fall to $2915 per ounce.
The US economy will enter a recession next year amid higher Federal Reserve (Fed) rates, Deutsche Bank economists David Folkerts-Landau and Peter Hooper believe.
“The US economy will take a big hit from additional Fed tightening in late 2023 and early 2024,” analysts said in a report titled Over the Brink.
In their opinion, the Fed will raise the key rate by 0.5 percentage points at the next three meetings, and by mid-2023 the rate will exceed 3.5%. The current target range for the federal funds rate is 0.25-0.5%.
In addition, by the end of next year, the Fed will reduce the amount of assets on its balance sheet by almost $2 trillion from the current $8.9 trillion, Deutsche Bank experts predict. For monetary policy, this is equivalent to another 3-4 rate hikes of 0.25 percentage points, Bloomberg quotes economists.
Deutsche Bank predicts that by the summer of 2023 the US stock market will fall by 20%, and the yield on 10-year US government bonds will rise to 3.3% at the end of this year. Unemployment in the United States in 2024 will jump to 4.9% from 3.6% in March, economists expect.
“Our forecast for a recession in the US next year so far differs sharply from the consensus,” the authors of the report admit. “But we believe that this will soon change.”
Earlier this week, Ukraine repaid early a short-term loan from Deutsche Bank AG London in the amount of about $350 million, attracted at the end of last year, a source in the market has told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to the source, taking into account interest, the payment reached some $354 million.
Interfax-Ukraine could not immediately reach the Ministry of Finance for confirmation of the information.
As reported, according to government resolution No. 1291 dated December 23, 2020, this is a bridge loan taken for up to six months at a rate of up to three-month LIBOR + 5.75%, which can be repaid ahead of schedule in the event of a change in the market price of Ukraine’s eurobonds or new issue on the terms determined by the loan agreement.
Early 2021, the Ministry of Finance said that in the last days of 2020 it attracted a short-term $340.7 million loan from Deutsche Bank. According to the ministry’s statistics, in December 2020, Ukraine’s debt to this creditor increased by $372.6 million, to $1.313 billion, and by the end of February 2021 it decreased to $1.272 billion.
The fall of the Ukrainian economy in 2020 may amount to 5.5% of GDP with a further recovery of growth by 3.5-4% in the next two years, analysts at Deutsche Bank expect.
According to the materials of Emerging Markets Outlook 2021, experts admit that the next tranche of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be allocated to Ukraine in early 2021, which will pave the way for obtaining funding from other international partners.
At the same time, the central bank will leave the discount rate at 6% per annum, according to the review.
