Articles by The Corner

About the Author

The Corner
The Corner has a team of on-the-ground reporters in capital cities ranging from New York to Beijing. Their stories are edited by the teams at the Spanish magazine Consejeros (for members of companies’ boards of directors) and at the stock market news site Consenso Del Mercado (market consensus). They have worked in economics and communication for over 25 years.
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70% of Stoxx600 firms see profit hikes

MADRID | The Corner | Reporting season in Europe is beginning. Over half the Stoxx600 companies that already showed results surpassed expectations. Profits grew for 70% of this businesses and the average rise was of 9%.  European markets’ upward trend being less mature than American’s may point at a EuroStoxx higher appreciation potential. It gains importance as performance results keep looking up and prices context allows EZ companies to rise EBITDA margin from current 15.2% to prior years levels (above 16%).


yuan dollar paperplane

RMB as reserve: Rebalancing the global financial system

By Peter Wong via Caixin | It is unlikely that the RMB or yuan, China’s “people’s currency,” will replace the dollar outright as the world’s only investment and reserve currency any time in the foreseeable future. But there is every indication that the dollar will have to make room for a second global reserve currency within the next 15 years. A revolution allowing investors to diversify risk – and creating a system with more choice and better ability to resist shocks – should be welcomed.



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PMIs in the EZ: Business activity close to 3-year highs

MADRID | The Corner | Thursday’s Eurozone PMI data for July provide welcome relief after a series of weak short- term indicators, particularly for May, UBS analysts point out. While the PMIs for France remained soft, those for Germany and the broader Eurozone were much stronger again, signalling business activity close to three-year highs, particularly in services.  


No Picture

How the hammer falls as China nails corruption

BEIJING |By Gao Yu and Wang Heyan via Caixin | Curiosity is one reason the website of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission (CDIC) attracts up to 2 million page views every day. Another reason is fear. Some website visitors, for example, want to know whether they or anyone they know has been targeted by a government campaign to root out corruption led by the CDIC Inspection Team.


japan prices

Will the Bank of Japan act again?

MADRID | The Corner | Will the Japanese Central Bank act again to raise inflation expectations and get inflation to reach its target of 2%? Some analysts believe the BoJ should allow the economy to overheat a little in order to promote higher inflation expectations. “Kuroda is convinced that the country will reach its inflation target of 2% in the FY2015,” experts at JP Morgan pointed out on Thursday, “but the help of the yen’s depreciation is fading since expectations of further monetary expansion are lowering too.”


No Picture

Spain: Barclays see growth and employment improving in Q2

MADRID | The Corner | Ahead of INE’s official release of Q2 growth, Bank of Spain (BdE) published  on Wednesday its estimate in its economic bulletin. The central bank estimates that economic activity in Q2 accelerated to 0.5% q/q from 0.4% q/q in Q1, driven by positive contributions from both domestic and external demand. BdE has also revised upwards its annual growth projections for 2014 and 2015 to 1.3% and 2%. These estimates coincide with ours, both for Q2 14 and for 2014-15, analysts at Barclays point out.



No Picture

EM: High yields offer some shelter

LONDON | By Koon Chow at Barclays | A pertinent question asked by some investors is whether EM markets have become complacent again and whether new exogenous shocks may catch investors at a vulnerable point just as they are settling down to ‘summer’ carry trades. We see this risk in some markets but it is far from a universal theme in our view. In EM local markets – FX and bonds – we see Turkey as probably the most vulnerable to exogenous risk aversion. At the other end of the spectrum are Brazil, Central Europe, and Colombia, which do not appear vulnerable in part because of the high local real yield levels.


russia

Russia: the real effects of sanctions

MADRID | The Corner | The EU is considering harder sanctions on Russia after the downing of a Malaysian airliner in Ukraine. What are the effects of the current and potential further sanctions on the Russian economy and, in general, on Emerging Markets (EM) sovereign external debt? Co-CIO Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management’s Asoka Wöhrmann weighs in. (Illustration: Iain Green at The Scotsman)