Richard N. Cooper via Caixin | Fourteen years ago, Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the term BRIC to stand for Brazil, Russia, India and China – four large emerging economies that might together shape the world economy in the future. With the later addition of South Africa, they came to the agreement in 2015 to create a BRICS bank.
The day after Draghi warned about greater than expected weakness in Eurozone inflation data, Spain’s final October inflation number has been published, confirming the -0.7% year-on-year preliminary figure. But despite the fact inflation remains in negative territory, the CPI rose 0.6% month-on-month.
UBS | We believe the new proposed IPO process could improve liquidity and investor protection and is therefore a structural positive. IPO resumption would also mean some of the corporate would consider raising equity instead of bond and help channel some of the liquidity away from the bond market.
BARCLAYS | The minority conservative government led by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho was ousted present week after the parliament rejected his government’s programme by a vote of 123 to 107. Political uncertainty is likely to continue to weigh on Portugal’s funding costs, despite the very accommodative monetary policy of the ECB.
James Alexander via Historinhas | The Bank of England published its quarterly Inflation Report for November 2015 last week. The fact that the BoE is missing its 2% inflation target by more than 1% set in train the usual mini-flurry of letters to and from their political masters at the UK finance ministry, aka The Treasury. While reading the Treasury reply I spotted that there had been an “evolution in UK monetary policy”, I was forced to read on.
Marc Chandler via Caixin | A mountain peak is easier to see when viewed from a valley than from the summit. Similarly, it may be easier to understand the changes in China’s currency regime if we take a step back and try to look at the big picture: Beijing wants its currency added to the SDR mechanism for status reasons, not to benefit its exports.
UBS | 81 months and 200% higher, this US Equity and Derivatives’ Bull is the third longest since 1932 and surpasses the average of 138%. While age or return alone does not signal The End, increasing volatility, Fed rate hikes, and an M&A boom in its third year have all preceded past tops.
One of the main reasons that Alexis Tsipras wanted to hold elections as soon as possible after agreeing the third bailout in August was that it gave him the best chance of obtaining a fresh mandate before the impact of the latest set of fiscal measures was felt by the average voter.
Fernando Barciela |At first sight, Telefonica’s third quarter and nine months to September results couldn’t be better. Between January and September, the company posted a 12% rise in consolidated revenues to 35.4 billion euros. Net income increased by a spectacular 69.6% to 46 billion euros in the same period.