Italy will choose their next government in 2018. Italy is subject to the same four issues present in many Eurozone member states, but with greater intensity: low growth (with productivity gains gone AWOL before the Global Financial Crisis), high public debt, a weak banking sector and political fragility. Improvements on all four fronts have characterized 2017.
Not many investors have been bullish on the price of oil recently, but Allianz Global Investors has had a constructive view of the industry for the past 12-18 months. Now that both members and non-members of the OPEC have renewed their commitment to limit production, it’s a good time to review the prospects for oil.
Euro area confidence is booming, according to sentiment indicators. To BoAML analysts, “this remained curious, because the continued improvement does not quite match activity data that signals strong, but non-accelerating growth into year-end”.
Yesterday, Saudi Aramco signed the contract awarding Técnicas Reunidas the construction of two gas projects promoted by Aramco. One day later, the Spanish company has confirmed its profit warning and announced that profit to September fell 45% to 55,5 million euros from a year earlier.
The Crown Prince and de-facto ruler of the Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, (MBS) launched an anti-corruption drive to safeguard the reform and modernization of the Saudi economy. Oil meanwhile looks to have broken out to the upside, which is very much a function of Brent Crude rather than West Texas Intermediate. The gap down started to open in August with Hurricane Harvey, not now with Saudi developments.
Caixin | President Xi Jinping is hosting U.S. President Donald Trump in China for the first time since Wednesday. Trump’s visit is part of his whirlwind Asia tour that saw him spend three days in South Korea.Trump will be accompanied by a business delegation that includes the leaders of 28 U.S. companies.
Droughts are not new in Spain, but current year is the third driest year of all time, behind 1981 and 2005. This situation is hitting the hydroelectric capacity of both Spanish utilities Iberdrola and Endesa. In fact, hydroelectric production in Spain fell almost 58% as reservoirs are at 37% capacity when they are normally at 60% during this time of the year.
Indra posted net profit of 85 million euros in the first nine months of 2017, up 76% from the 48 million euros registered a year earlier. The number of contracts obtained grew 13%, thanks to the incorporation of Tecnocom and organic growth in Indra’s IT business (4%)
Last week, People’s Bank of China (PBoC) Governor Zhou reaffirmed his concerns about the stability of the financial system in an article. Susan Joho, economist at Julius Baer points that he surprisingly spoke boldly of the risks of a Chinese Minsky moment.
According to Philippe Waechter, chief economist at Natixis AM there are two reasons in the UK economy to explain BoE last rate hike: a low productivity and a surge of inflation. In fact, the UK has had a productivity profile weaker than every other large developed countries except Italy since 2011.