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The Corner
The Corner has a team of on-the-ground reporters in capital cities ranging from New York to Beijing. Their stories are edited by the teams at the Spanish magazine Consejeros (for members of companies’ boards of directors) and at the stock market news site Consenso Del Mercado (market consensus). They have worked in economics and communication for over 25 years.
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In Europe 17th December 2014

Greece: Where did it all go wrong?

ATHENS | By Nick Malkoutzis via MacroPolis | When Greece returned to international bond markets in April this year after a four-year exile, it was trumpeted by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras as another step towards the crisis exit door. “Confidence in our country was confirmed by the most objective judge – the markets,” he said after investors snapped up three billion euros of five-year bonds with a coupon of 4.75 percent. Exactly seven months later, though, the yield on those bonds shot up to almost 10 percent. Suddenly, the markets do not seem so confident. So, what went wrong? 

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Markets 17th December 2014

How would broader ECB QE impact the UK?

LONDON | UBS analysts | UBS expects the ECB to widen its asset purchase programme to include corporate, parastatal and sovereign bonds on 5 March 2015. Our base case is for €1 trillion of sovereign bond purchases to be undertaken over a two-year time horizon. In this note, we examine how a broadening of the ECB’s QE programme is likely to impact the UK economy and sterling-denominated asset classes.

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Spanish economy 16th December 2014

Inflation in Spain: Negative territory for 5 consecutive months

MADRID | The Corner | Spain’s final CPI in November was exactly the same as preliminary estimates: -0.4% yoy and -0.1% per month. The inter-annual rate has registered its fifth month in deflation, whereas the month-on-month rate was recorded as negative for the first time in 4 months. Throughout 2014, there were only three months with negative rates. Both the acceleration of the fall in oil prices and the stability of the dollar/euro explain these figures.

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World economy 16th December 2014

Abenomics: “Third arrow” as a necessary condition for trickle-down effects

LONDON | Barclays analysts | The post-election challenge for Abenomics will be how to promote a transition from a favourable turn in expectations to the real economy (real GDP). For example, JPY depreciation has boosted earnings and led to an improvement in business sentiment (expectations), but export volume remains sluggish, suggesting it has not given a boost to the real economy (real GDP). 

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In Europe 15th December 2014

EU: Dumbing it all down

ZURICH | UBS analysts | Corporate bond markets in Europe have been quite resilient through these past few sessions in both IG and HY, offering relatively good outperformance. It would appear it is increasingly becoming a case of just buy it (corporate bonds), because that’s what’s best. Don’t worry, one will be looked after – the ‘structure’ after all is in place. There may be no growth, but you are promised low interest rates (zero at the front end), low funding yields (lowest ever, iBoxx corporate bond yields at 1.4%), a low default rate (less than 3%) and your money back at maturity.

Jose Manuel Gonzalez Paramo

In Europe 13th December 2014

“A change in the ECB’s mandate would be a mistake”

MADRID | The Corner | Former member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (2004-2012) and BBVA’s José Manuel González Páramo believes the Frankfurt-based institution may currently have a “a sales problem.” “It operates in a different context from that of the US. Incidentally, the US was starting to realise what was going on in the markets by the end August 2007, when the ECB was already flooding the European market with liquidity. The ECB does not have the mandate of all Europeans to do everything Europe needs: providing liquidity, supervising the banks, acting instead of the Commission where the Commission does not act, acting instead of the Council or lecturing its members…,” he explained.

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Markets 12th December 2014

M&A likely to remain a feature of 2015

ZURICH | UBS analysts | In addition to setting out our thoughts by sub-sector (capex, mobile devices, semis), we outline themes and stock specific catalysts for 2015, including a review of potential M&A and possible hikes in cash returns. We also highlight each stock’s investment drivers (positive and negative) through 2015. In general we see another robust year for semi capex, softer telecom capex (but stable vendor revenue), ongoing strong growth in low end smart-phones, a medium-term inventory correction in analog semis (with solid underlying trends), and the continuing emergence of mobile payments. 

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Spanish economy 11th December 2014

Companies’ destruction in Spain approaching end of the tunnel

MADRID | The Corner | Almost 8,000 companies were created in Spain in October, according to official figures, around 3% more y-o-y. The rate of businesses destruction went down by -12.2%, showing the economy’s slight improvement. However, unemployment still sits painfully at  23.7% and entrepreneurs still complain about red tape and other restrictions.

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World economy 11th December 2014

What are the upside risks for EM in 2015?

ZURICH | UBS analysts | We have painted a fairly sombre picture for emerging markets assets next year. Our base case is that EM debt will generate returns of 0-2%, while EM equities should yield 5-7% returns for USD based investors. The main thesis that underlies this view is that the growth alpha between EM and DM will fall further, with sluggishness in exports a critical concern.