In Europe

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Where is the success of the painful internal devaluation policy?

MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | The Spanish government has the statistics of the major firms in Spain, whose turnover amounts to more than €6 million, and uses the data to figure out where the economy is going. I don’t think this is a trustworthy source –although it is interesting- because businesses have a bigger self-financing capacity: they are not in need of banking credit to survive.



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German budget consolidation under threat by its own Länder

BERLIN | Alberto Lozano | While German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble preaches public budget consolidation all around the Eurozone, some Länder don’t seem to be taking his prescriptions seriously. Their deficits continue to grow in 2014 and moving away from the zero deficit goal in 2020 as required by the country’s constitution. 


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ECB to issue minutes, move to six-week schedule

ZURICH | By The Corner | As expected, the ECB did not unveil any new policy measures on Thursday. Although the Bank maintains an easing bias, it signalled that it wants to wait and see how the monetary stimulus delivered last month unfolds. UBS’ base case scenario remains that ECB rates will stay on hold for the foreseeable future and that QE will not be deployed. The key news from ECB’s meeting was more of a technical nature.


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Greece prepares to tap bond markets again

ATHENS | By Macropolis | After tapping markets in April for the first time in four years, Greece is considering another bond transaction, which could take place as early as next week, according to reports. The first bond issue on April 10 was a 3-billion-euro, 5-year note in a syndicated sale that was heavily oversubscribed. The yield was 4.95 percent.


General government gross debt by sector of debt holder

No matter what, non-residents bet on French debt

MADRID | The Corner | While  markets are expressing their concerns about the French economy, institutional investors seem quite comfortable about the Hexagone’s situation: the debt share of non-residents is 57.3 %, according to Eurostat. Finland and Latvia are the top choices with 81.6 % and 80.0 % of their debt owned by non-residents. Check the graph above.


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Spain: Employment follows recovery path

MADRID | By Fernando G. Urbaneja | June employment data are the best in the last seven years: economy is moving and employment reflects an activity with generalised increases in sectors and regions. Spanish growth is still slight but significant after seven years of decline. (Graph: Charles Butler @ibexsalad)


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EZ lending activity improvement compromised

MADRID | The Corner | While the European inflation remained at 0.5%, credit steeply contracted in May thus neutralising the tepid improvement of the lending activity during March and April, according to Afi. The decline in private credit accelerated in small peripheral countries, but it continued the same in Spain and Italy.


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Euro area June inflation should remain at 0.5% until year-end

LONDON | By Barclays analysts | Euro area “flash” June HICP remained unchanged at 0.5% y/y, in line with our and consensus expectations. Printing 0.51% y/y at two decimal places (very close to our 0.50% y/y estimate), today’s outturn is technically only very slightly higher than last month (0.49% y/y) and March (0.47% y/y). It remains nonetheless very weak indeed.


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Spanish external sector under the spotlight

MADRID | By Carlos Díaz Güell | Spain’s GDP growth in 1Q14 (0.4% on a quarterly basis and 0.5% year on year) was backed by an increase in the national demand (1%), which was boosted by an atypical upturn of the public consumption. Meanwhile, the external sector moved away from the upward trend that had been following in the last few years which was affecting growth.