AXA IM | Is the future for fixed income one of flat and negative yield curves? That is certainly the direction of travel as central bank buying, lowered growth and inflation expectations and a lower for longer interest rate outlook all contribute to reduced term premium and hoarding of safe haven assets.
BARCLAYS | While in large parts descriptive, Tecnicas’s recent analyst day highlighted the controls that the company has in place, the shock to the system as proved to be sub-optimal in Canada and the efforts put in place to ensure that these don’t repeat.
Spain is one of the countries in the EU where its big businessmen remain in their posts the longest. Despite the fact that Emilio Botin is gone and Alierta and Villar Mir have left, the average age of Spain’s top businessmen is still higher than in France (56.6 years), the US (58.8 years) and the UK (55.8 years).
After the lack of success of private initiatives to help restructure Italy’s banking system, the government is now looking at how it can directly step in and help out the banks. Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) is one of Italy’s biggest banks and the one which has the largest amount of toxic assets on its balance sheet by a long shot. At the end of the first quarter, MPS’ exposure to toxic assets was over 47 billion euros.
What’s going on with technology giant Google, and other similar firms like Amazon or Apple, is really scandalous. The company with headquarters in Mountain Valley, and now called Alphabet, posted spectacular pretax profits of 19.651 billion dollars (26% of its income of 75 billion). But it hardly paid any tax abroad.
Deutsche Bank is still betting on the Spanish property market and has bought €400 million in doubtful property developer loans from Bankia. The deal was carried out by the German bank’s funds, which could have paid around 150 million euros for the assets.
AXA IM | Despite some recovery in risk assets at the start of this week, the net reaction since the result of the UK referendum on membership of the European Union (EU) has been lower government bond yields and wider credit spreads in fixed income markets. This creates an interesting situation for investors looking at short duration funds.
Fernando Rodriguez | Spain’s small and midcap companies are weathering the Brexit storm better than the bigger stocks. Fund managers from Santander, Bankia and Gescooperativo explain their strategies: “In general, we believe the exposure of these companies to Brexit is limited due to their limited exposure to the UK in terms of sales.”
Out of the 33 banks subjected to the Federal Reserve’s stress tests, 31 have passed this year, which means they will be able to increase their dividends and share buybacks. On the other hand, Deutsche Bank and Banco Santander failed the tests due to the Fed’s doubts about their capacity to measure risk.
The rise in the Ibex 35 in the first few minutes of Monday’s session, when it rose 3% to over 8,000 points could not last. And it didn’t. Half an hour after the market opened, it began its downward spiral once again towards the 7,700 level. It lost over 2% and stayed there almost until the close, with the fall mirrored in the rest of the European exchanges.