As we move into mid-December, the economic narrative for 2024 appears clear in retrospect: inflation was mostly tamed, and most central banks could start easing.

However, 2024 was also a volatile year. Markets predicted everything from a soft landing to outright recession for the US. Global markets witnessed a sharp sell-off, followed by a recovery; US equities soared following the presidential election. Europe's economic malaise never dissipated.

Given that it was a year of unexpected events, CEIC has added the "surprise" indices from Citigroup, which cover inflation as well as widely watched measures of economic performance. The Wall Street bank constructs these indicators for regions and nations based on whether market-moving data releases have been above consensus expectations (resulting in a Surprise Index reading above zero) or below them (a reading in negative territory).

Our first visualization divides the world into broad regional groups to compare year-to-date readings of the Economic Surprise Index (which is released daily). The Eurozone's negative reading stands out: economic data was consistently worse than expected throughout 2024.

Latin America, meanwhile, enjoyed the most positive surprises; more broadly, emerging markets frequently saw economic data surprise to the upside.

Focusing on the US, we can track the economic surprise index over the course of 2024 and compare it to the American stock benchmark. As the Federal Reserve considered whether its historic tightening cycle was slowing the economy, the index turns neutral and then to negative surprise territory mid-year. A disappointing job report, in particular, provoked a summer sell-off.

Turning to Citigroup's measure of inflation surprises (released monthly), we charted a longer-term view comparing the US, the UK and the Eurozone. Again, the Eurozone stands out for economic pain. The post-pandemic inflation surge of 2021-22 surprised central bankers around the world, but European price increases consistently wrong-footed observers' expectations the most.

Moving into 2023-24, the UK often had the worst inflation surprises. At the time of writing, price increases are mostly behaving as predicted – all three economies are clustered around the zero mark.

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