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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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aggregation line 12th March 2012

What the City of London reads is the Telegraph, not the FT!

A shocking fact, from the revolving door here at thecorner.eu via Spain’s business paper Expansión, and a worth-noting point for readers tired of stereotypes: former Financial Times correspondent in Madrid Tom Burns has news for the pink’un-obsessed continental Europeans. What’s the dead-tree media brand of preference in the City of London? Not that one. Burns says City types love the finance pages of The Daily Telegraph, instead. “[In Europe] those in…

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World economy 12th March 2012

Monday’s US charts (especially) for Spain’s labour union leaders

By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | While some Spanish labour union leaders attend press conferences dressed up in expensive Rolex watches, employment numbers increase somewhere else: in the US, as this graphics show and economist Tim Duy explains in his post. Hiring activity in the US raises 245,000 new jobs since last December. It always is inconvenient and very imperfect to compare different national labour markets and I know better. Yet,…

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Spanish economy 12th March 2012

Worrying facts about the Spanish deficit

By Juan Pedro Marín Arrese, in Madrid | The way the data on the Spanish deficit snowballed from 6% in mid-December to 8% a few weeks later and to 8.51% now, has led many to raise their eyebrows in utter disbelief. Even allowing for some benign neglect shown by the out coming government, such a huge deviation adds little credit to budgetary figures outside central administration boundaries. It not only proves…

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In Europe 9th March 2012

Mário Soares: Portugal and Spain must tell Mrs Merkel enough is enough

The Latin Bloc may be awakening, after all. The least it could be said about the Spanish government’s decision of bending the public deficit target bar Brussels and Berlin intend to impose, from a harsh 4.4pc to a softer 5.8pc, is that president Mariano Rajoy has enlivened with his move the not-just-austerity talk and the perhaps-Germany-is-wrong debate. In the Friday edition of the Spanish daily El País, former president and…

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World economy 9th March 2012

Meet the 2020 Chinese consumers: they will transform their economy

BEIJING | By the year 2020, private consumption will account for a 45% of the GDP (33% in 2010) becoming the main driver of growth of the Chinese economy. This significant increase will be due to a change in consumption patterns, as it is noticed in a report recently released by McKinsey consultancy group “Meet the 2020 Chinese consumer”. But how to fit consumption into the busy schedule of the ideal…

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In Europe 9th March 2012

Nordkapp’s Pablo Díez: “devaluation would be swift, austerity is slow and painful”

By Julia Pastor and Tania Suarez, in Madrid | Pablo Díez, at Nordkapp’s asset management department argues that implementation of austerity as the only measure to sort the crisis out will bring social chaos in Europe. Yet, Díez is unsure about how right Spain’s president  Mariano Rajoy is in rejecting the deficit target of 4.4% this year. Do you think it would have been ‘suicidal’ to commit Spain to Brussels’…

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Companies 8th March 2012

Valencia-based little giant Mercadona makes a 19pc-net profit jump

Spain’s largest supermarket chain increased its turnover in 2011 to €17.831 billion, 8% up from 2010’s figures. The company, whose headquarters are in Valencia, brought some Mediterranean sun over the Spanish economy when it released this week its 2011 results. Mercadona’s productivity growth rate was 2%, earning a profit after tax of €474 million or 19% more than in 2010. Also, the supermarket has created 6,500 new permanent jobs in 2011,…

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Markets 8th March 2012

Lose any hope of escaping a stern haircut on Greek debt holdings

By Juan Pedro Marín Arrese, in Madrid | Those hedge funds resisting debt restructuring shouldn’t nurture any hope to save their money. The titles they hold might be governed by international law. But should Greece turn off the tap, counting on CDS to fill the gap might prove a delusion. Credit default guarantors have already warned they will simply fail to respect commitments entered. The ensuing claims might fatten law…

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Markets 8th March 2012

Mortgage rate swaps have become Bankinter’s nightmare

By Capital Madrid | After thousands of Spaniards marched last week throughout the country under the banner of alleged bank abuses, the hunt continues with legal action against one of the products entities often used during the bubble years: the interest rate swaps, also called ‘clips’. Bankinter recently gained one more adverse sentence, which brought its naughty account to 162. The local court number 8 in Madrid declared the nullity of…

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Spanish economy 7th March 2012

Internal devaluation in Spain and unemployment

By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | I give you today a couple of graphics, which measure how the process of internal devaluation is going in that peripheral crown, Spain. First, the industry labour costs (wages, red line) and producer prices. Then, industrial production. Everything in annual variations. As readers can see, the boom years were not quite as buoyant in terms of industrial production. Meanwhile, wages were well above the prices, at 4%, trimming production margins. It is a reflection of the brick-and-morter boom, which revitalised wages and sturdy houses…