BoAML | After Brexit, we followed through on our scenario analysis, penciling in a full-blown UK recession, cutting 0.5% off of Euro Area growth and slicing 0.2% off of US and global growth. Events since Brexit have not changed our call. The pound has plunged more than 11% since the vote, and both consumer and business confidence have tumbled.
The precipitous drop in oil prices in particular has forced rentier states, which were able to count on massive energy profits to fund generous state largesse up until a few years ago, to diversify their economic relationships with Europe and the rest of the world. These profits allowed states like Saudi Arabia and Iran to get by with incredibly inefficient economies, which officials in both countries are now actively restructuring in order to stimulate real growth and attract international business.
At end-2015, Spanish banks and savings banks had barely a quarter of the holding in Spanish companies’ shares it had in 1992, the first year in the historical series elaborated by BME’s Rearch Department. The current share of 3.6% is 12 percentage points lower than that in 1992 and 5.8 percentage points below the level in 2007, at the start of the global financial crisis.
Zhu Haibin via Caixin | High savings rates, a longtime hallmark of China’s economy, have helped the country retain its financial stability despite rapid economic growth. But China’s aging population is cutting into savings rates, and the effect on China’s economy and financial sector could prove disastrous.
It came as a surprise for market makers: the Bank of England left borrowing costs at 0.5% on Thursday in spite of the Brexit fears. Also, the central bank will keep the size of the Asset Purchase Programme at £375 billion and hinted it could launch a stimulus package in August. The pound spiked to two-week high and FTSE 100 turned negative after the announcement.
James Alexander via Historinhas | Brexit is an irrelevance. So say US equities. In fact, if US equities say anything, they seem to think Brexit is a good thing if it means the Fed holds off from rate rises for longer. Bring it on!
The European Court of Justice advocate general made public on Wednesday a detailed opinion from an advisers group on so-called floor clauses in Spanish mortgage contracts. This recommendation suggests the court should apply retroactively a “temporal limit” on the amounts banks will have to reimburse borrowers. Floor clauses were already declared unfair by Spanish Supreme Court in 2013 May.
Fernando Fernández is a member of the board at Bankia and Red Eléctrica. Apart from the challenges presented by the macroeconomic environment and the technology revolution, he believes that Spain’s banks have to establish a new kind of relationship with their clients and consolidate the sector’s new size.
Nick Malkoutzis via Macropolis | A pointless referendum, a prime minister resigning, the opposition collapsing in a heap, the finance minister disappearing and nobody having any plan about what to do: This has all happened over the last few years in Greece. Never, though, all at the same time as has just occurred in the UK.
AXA IM | Is the future for fixed income one of flat and negative yield curves? That is certainly the direction of travel as central bank buying, lowered growth and inflation expectations and a lower for longer interest rate outlook all contribute to reduced term premium and hoarding of safe haven assets.