F. William Engdahl via Caixin | Washington’s recent trade actions are aimed foursquare at China, not at the EU or other trade partners. However, the aim is not to reduce China exports to the U.S. The aim is a fundamental opening-up of the Chinese economy to the Washington free-market liberal reforms that China has steadfastly resisted.
The management team at Bankia recently unveiled a three-year business plan which forecasts a strong improvement in profitability, with ROTE (based on a 12% CET1) reaching 11% in 2020.
The two parties that are about to form the next Italian government are driven by a profoundly anti-democratic culture. Their claim to so-called direct democracy exercised via the web on a platform owned by a private company is not just a staple of populism, but an attempt to fuel general discourse against any party in the name of the people.
Spain’s three big television channels (TVE, Mediaset España and Atresmedia), have announced the commercial launch of their hybrid television for the end of 2018 or beginning 2019. It’s a service which combines traditional digital TV enhanced with content from the broad band connections in homes.
The European Commission (EC) could announce this week the details of a new sovereign bond, which would allow for progress to be made in the financial and banking union. According to the EC, it would provide greater financial stability both for governments and European banks in the face of future hypothetical financial crises.
The alliance between two parties with extreme ideologies which are poles apart has created an unorthodox programme for government in Italy, which could heighten financial instability in the EMU.
Spain’s economic growth has only just begun. According to Morgan Stanley’s macroeconomists, the last Spanish cycles have lasted increasingly longer, from ’82 to ’93 and from ’94 to ‘2013.
European companies face the challenge of failing due to the competition from Asia, but it’s a fact that they constantly invest more than their annual depreciation, 20% more to be precise. And if we analyse the hierarchical order by countries, Italy is not exactly lagging behind. Neither is the UK.
At last, the Greek economy seems to be in a much more solid position. Greece once again saw positive growth rates in 2017 and it’s expected to maintain a growth rate of around 2% over the next two years. In spite of this, the financial sustainability of Greece’s public sector remains in doubt.
The European leveraged financial markets have an increasing attraction for investors seeking more risk. According to data from Moody’s, the new volumes of issuance of European Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs), one of the main sources of demand for leveraged loans, stand at 6.4 billion euros in the year to date. At this rate, it will exceed the annual figure for 2017 of 18.8 billion euros, which was the highest in the last 10 years.