Europe’s tech sector has long been overshadowed by the “superstar” tech firms in the US and Asia. Arguably no tech stock in Europe is a household name, certainly not one with the instant recognition of Apple, Samsung, Microsoft or Google. Nokia once came close when it was famed for its handsets. It lives on, albeit as a less conspicuous networks provider.
Unigestión | Whether it is called QE or not, buying bills (swapping reserves for short-term bonds), injecting liquidity into the market place and growing the balance sheet affects risky assets. Market conditioning (the Pavlovian effect) since the GFC is that stock markets cannot go down when the Fed is growing the balance sheet. Additionally, the Fed’s extremely aggressive response to the repo blowout in September is another signal to markets that it has a very low tolerance for market fluctuations.
Growing concerns from US and European investors and regulators over the sustainability of integrated oil and gas companies’ business models have brought forward their potential impact on the sector’s credit quality to the medium from long term. Scope Ratings says the near-term, 2020 credit outlook for the integrated oil & gas sector remains stable.
Trade barriers are causing more insolvencies in the agricultural sector, while the retail sector is vulnerable to rising import costs. Crédito y Caución expects the United States to deepen its slowdown in 2020. The Spanish credit insurer expects GDP growth of 1.7%, largely supported by private consumption in the face of weak investment, public spending and exports. Although household finances are in better shape than a decade ago, among companies there has been an increase in debt and a deterioration in their credit capacity.
Banc Sabadell | America Movil would be open to explore options to buy Telefonica’s (TEF) assets in Latin America, according to statements from its CEO and CFO that have appeared in the press. It is worth mentioning that it was already leaked that Telefonica had hired several investment banks to try to accelerate the sale of its subsidiary HispAm to before June 2020. The idea would be to sell a…
The sale of homes registered a total of 501,085 transactions in 2019. This was due to the decline in second-hand housing transactions, as new home purchases increased 1.2 %, says the National Statistics Institute (INE). On the other hand, housing prices continued to rebound, according to Q4’19 statistics from the Spanish housing registers.
The Ministry for Ecological Transition plans to make changes to the law which will affect Red Eléctrica and Enagás, operators of Spain’s electricity and gas networks, respectively. According to press reports, the two companies, each with a stake of public capital, will be obliged to inform the competition supervisor (CNMC) of any interest they have in acquisitions (now they are not required to do so). The CNMC will not have the right of veto, but it will impose conditions on its approval.
In its latest monthly report, the European Central Bank has published an interesting study on the recent evolution of the wealth of European families.The monetary authority’s objective is to relate families’ net wealth component (assets less debt) to their spending decision. It’s a fact that, in theory, net wealth accumulated with job prospects are both key for household consumption. In addition, wealth also has theoretical consequences for the design of monetary policy.
Merlin Properties’ CEO, Ismael Clemente, said it will take advantage of Portugal’s socimi regime when the country’s legislation is open to the incorporation of the so-called ‘community passport’ for companies from other European countries. Clemente was speaking at the III Iberian REIT Conference. Merlin has been in Portugal since 2015. Together with Spain, it is the firm’s strategic market.