The International Monetary Fund has warned of a demographic timebomb for developed economies such as Britain, the USA and Japan that will require a radical rethink for immigration policies in response.

Identifying a mounting threat to economic growth and the welfare systems of the world’s most advanced countries, the fund said increasing numbers of baby boomers reaching retirement could potentially “overwhelm” these countries.

It said throwing open their borders to more immigrants and boosting the participation of women and older people could help to solve the problem, at a time when the working age population will be expected over the coming decades to support roughly double the number of elderly people as they do today.

The comments came as part of the funds World Economic Outlook.

US markets have recovered some ground after Friday’s losses, on hopes that the trade dispute with China can be resolved through negotiation.

Investors are also hoping that this week’s start of the reporting season, with results due from the likes of JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup, will see some positive news. The recent tax cuts unveiled by Donald Trump, which have been out of the spotlight since the trade row began, should give a boost to corporate earnings.

So the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently 185 points or 0.8% higher, while the S&P 500 opened 0.65% higher and the Nasdaq Composite 0.86% higher.

But uncertainty remains about the trade conflict given Trump’s various twitter comments, and ahead of a key speech by Chinese president Xi on Tuesday.

Speaking of China, Barclays bank deputy chairman Sir Gerry Grimstone has praised the country’s president Xi Jinping for his “authoritarian” leadership.

Grimstone - who is also chairman of Standard Life Aberdeen - said at the Boao Forum for Asia, that China was “wonderful” for UK business. In a Bloomberg TV interview, he added:

The fact that Xi is prepared to give such strong authoritarian guidance within the context of a market economy is great for companies such as mine.

He also said the current dispute between the US and China “could potentially be a trade war.”

The full story and Grimstone’s comments are here.

President Xi is due to give a keynote speech on Tuesday at the Boao Forum - which is taking place on the tropical island of Hainan - where he is expected to address the trade situation.

It may be generally calm in the markets but not for companies with Russian links.

In the wake of the latest US sanctions on Russian businesses, a number of listed firms have seen their shares come under pressure again.

EN+, which manages the assets of tycoon Oleg Deripaska, is down 27% while Roman Abramovich’s Evraz has lost 15.5% - the biggest faller in the FTSE 100 - and Polymetal has fallen 8.7%.

Here’s a bit of gloom from the eurozone.

Consumer sentiment fell in April for the third month in a row, due to concerns about a possible trade war between the US and China and a slowdown in global growth.

The Sentix index fell from 24 in March to 19.6 in April, lower than the forecast level of 20. Economic expectations turned negative for the first time since July 2016. Sentix managing director Patrick Hussy said:

Even though the current situation is still rated as excellent...the prospects for the future have become massively gloomier. The customs disputes, fuelled by US president Donald Trump, are leaving their traces.

The City watchdog has outlined plans to significantly increase its spending on Brexit to help smooth the process for financial firms, one of the biggest sectors of the economy that could face disruption.

The Financial Conduct Authority will need about £30m for making changes to the way it governs the work of banks, insurers and asset managers in the City of London, according to its annual business plan published on Monday.

The EU withdrawal budget, paid for by fees levied on the finance industry, is the first time the regulator has outlined a specific price tag for Brexit and illustrates the ballooning costs for many government organisations as the UK leaves the EU. The FCA said it had earmarked £2.5m in additional costs last year, although had done some work from its existing half a billion-pound budget to carry out some of its work on Brexit in the last financial year.

Over in Germany, there has been a boardroom shake-up at the country’s biggest bank. Julia Kollewe reports:

Deutsche Bank, Germany’s biggest lender, has ousted its British chief executive, John Cryan, after years of losses and promoted the co-head of its retail banking arm to the top job.

Following a two-week boardroom battle, Deutsche has appointed Christian Sewing as chief executive with immediate effect. He vowed to take “tough decisions” to return the bank to profitability.

Cryan, a Yorkshireman who took the helm at Deutsche in June 2015, leaves at the end of this month, two years before his contract was due to end.

Our full story is here:

House prices in the UK rose by 1.5% in March compared to the previous month, according to the Halifax. This was a better than expected result, with analysts forecasting growth of just 0.2%.

This was the fasted increase since August last year, but the Halifax does point out the monthly figures can be volatile. House prices rose by 2.7% in the first three months of the year compared to the same period last year, up from the 1.8% annual growth reported in February.

But compared to the October to December quarter, they slipped by 0.1%, the second successive decline on this measure. Russell Galley, Halifx managing director, said:

House prices in the three months to March were largely unchanged compared with the previous quarter. The annual rate of growth continues to be in a narrow range of under 3%; though the average price of £227,871 is a new high.

Activity levels, like house price growth, have softened compared with a year ago. Mortgage approvals are down compared to 12 months ago, whilst home sales have remained flat in the early months of the year. This lack of direction in the housing market is in stark contrast to the continuing strength of the UK jobs market. The unemployment rate is now the joint lowest since 1975 and in the three months to January there were 402,000 more people in work compared to a year earlier.

In the coming months we expect price growth to remain close to our prediction of 3% despite the very positive factors of continuing low mortgage rates, great affordability levels and a robust labour market. The continuing shortage of properties for sale will also support price growth.

As expected, European markets have made a steady start to the week on hopes that the trade dispute between the US and China can be resolved before the threatened tariffs kick in.

The FTSE 100 is currently up 0.22% , while Europe’s Stoxx 600 index opened up 0.3%. Germany’s Dax has added 0.5% and France’s Cac has climbed 0.2%.

Earlier there was some weaker than expected trade data from Germany, with imports and exports both down. It is the weakest start to a new year since 2009, says economist Carsten Brzeski at ING Bank, at a time when Trump’s tariff plans could hit the country’s economy:

The latest trade data confirm that the German economy has had a weak start to the new year. Both exports and imports took an unexpected hit in February. Exports dropped by 3.2% month on month (from -0.4% in January), while imports decreased by 1.3% month on month, (from -0.4%). The trade surplus widened somewhat, from 17.3bn euro in January to 18.4bn euro in February.

These days, talking about trade means talking about Trump and tariffs. In Germany, these talks have caused quite some goose bumps. Rightly so. In 2017, the US was Germany’s largest export partner. The bilateral trade surplus amounted to more than 50bn euro, with vehicles and machinery recording the largest bilateral surplus. At the same time, Germany runs a significant trade deficit with the US in agricultural products. The only comforting factor for Germany is that it has a very diversified export sector, particularly in terms of geographic diversification.

Still, even though the current stage of the global trade conflict seems to be limited to China and the US, Germany could become the first prominent victim outside of these two countries. China announced to impose a 25% import tariff on cars produced in the US. This would immediately harm Germany as the single largest car exporting company in the US is in fact a German car manufacturer.

While the prospects for the German export machinery have deteriorated significantly in recent weeks, the present state of the economy gives some reasons for concern. In fact, the entire start to the year 2018 has been a disappointment. Sentiment indicators have started to weaken, albeit from record highs, and industrial data for the first two months showed the weakest performance since 2009. In our view, seasonal effects, the cold winter weather and a flu epidemic were probably the main drivers of this disappointment. At least in the near term, sound fundamentals, low interest rates, record high employment, high capacity utilisation, low inventories and filled order books are strong arguments in favour of a re-acceleration of the economy. However, if anything downside risks for the economy have clearly increased in recent weeks.