Today’s market chatter in Spain
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | Market makers woke up with a torrent of data explaining how first quarter played out: Spanish public deficit, Eurozone’s activity indicators, and many more.
Markets
FCC’s refinancing deal captures Spain’s market chatter today
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | Spanish builder and services firm FCC wrapped up a debt refinancing agreement worth €4.5bn with 99 % of creditor banks, which could turn debt into corporate capital. Market makers like ACF find the move possitive but warn that this move would increase debt average cost.
Stress tests: the quality of its judgment
ANIMAL SPIRITS IN WASHINGTON | By Pablo Pardo | Throughout the last two years, bank regulators have identified a number of increasingly exotic assets in the already-full-of-exotic assets banks’ portfolios. For instance, some institutions are accumulating massive amounts of Credit Default Swaps (CDS). At a time when debt spreads are not just falling, but crashing, what is the logic to hedge in such manner? The short answer is: stress tests.
Market chatter: goodbye to a quite unsettling quarter
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | Today we close a rather complicated quarter. Beyond 10-year Spanish bonds, this term turned out a little unnerving with Ukraine’s crisis, fears of deleveraging in China and Fed’s “hawkish” messages. J.P. MORGAN downgraded 1Q14 global growth prediction from 3 % to 2.3 % and now reduces US’s from 2 % to 1.5 %. Harsh weather may have affected the GDP by up to 1 %.
A return to capital markets for Greek banks but no return to domestic lending
ATHENS | By Jens Bastian via Macropolis | In the future we may look back on the past two weeks as a watershed moment for Greek banks following the onset of the twin financial and sovereign debt crisis in 2009. After extensive and well prepared international road shows, financial institutions in Athens attracted unprecedented levels of foreign investors’ interest for bond placements and capital-raising initiatives.
Market chatter: Repsol, Gas Natural and much more
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | Repsol could sell its 30% participation in Gas Natural before the summer. 20 % of it would go for sovereign wealth funds (yet unidentified) and 10 % through quick placement of shares. RENTA 4 believes the company will monetize the operation if other worthy investment opportunities are identified. SABADELL finds the move logical within negotiations with La Caixa (which controlls 1/3 of Repsol’s capital). ACF highlights that Gas Natural shares are turning out very profitable in dividend for Repsol (4.5%), making this sale not that attractive for that firm.
Market chatter: bonds await ECB’s move
MADRID | By Julia Pastor | European sovereign bonds markets have put some champagne bottles on the fridge for next neek in the case the ECB decides to inject some stimulus on the euro zone at last. Without setting a precedent, president Mario Draghi and Bundesbank’s head Jens Weidmann seem to bring their positions over the mechanism closer. This change of direction led Spanish 10-years bonds to 2005’s minimum yields of 3.27% and was behind the successful issue of Italian public Treasury, which sold €2.5 bn at also very low prices. Just Greece’s bonds are trending downwards.
If EU banking union doesn’t come true soon…
MADRID | By Álex García.
Today’s market chatter in Spain
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | Spanish government plans to create a state firm to house the failed toll roads, which will issue a 30-year bond of around 2.3 billion euros to pay the motorways’ debt. Also, creditor banks will be forced to accept a 50 percent haircut. In this regard, analysts at ACF and Sabadell don’t expect a considerable harm on licensed building companies’ share price.
Today’s market chatter in Spain: gas reform, tourist sector rocking and much more
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | 13.8 million people checked in Spanish hotels last month, 5.5 % more than February’s last year, according to official data. Frontur Spain highlights that 6.2 million tourists have visited the country so far this year. Bankia analysts highlight how this crucial industry for the country’s GDP seems to be overcoming the crisis, growing for the third consecutive month.