Articles by The Corner

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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.
US recovery

What the market is really telling about the US recovery

LONDON| By Stephane Deo and Ramin Nakisa at UBS | At the time of writing, the Treasury curve is telling the potential US GDP growth rate is very low – in the neighbourhood of 1%. The 30-year real yield is at 1.09% (but dipped below 1% recently), the 10-year real yield is at a frightening 0.36%, and the 5-year-in-5-year yield, a good proxy of where the market thinks long-term growth will settle, is at 1.05% (but also dipped below 1% recently).Taking those numbers at face value, we would have to conclude that the current recovery is doomed, and that growth will level off soon at a very disappointing level.


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Bank of Spain rises growth estimates to 2% by 2015

MADRID | By The Corner | Deputy Governor of Spanish central bank Fernando Restoy said on Friday that the country’s economy will register year-on-year growth rates near 2% at the end of year 2015, according to their last estimates. However, he suggested that “restoring the pre-crisis welfare levels will still take several years.”


SNB

Swiss watchdog asks UBS and Credit Suisse to rise leveraging ratios

MADRID | By The Corner | Swiss national bank has pointed out that the country’s two big entities UBS and Credit Suisse should reinforce their leveraging ratios in order to increase their protection against eventual risks, including legal disputes. Furthermore, UBS could be fined between €4.9- 7.3 bn after manipulating exchange rates. Credit Suisse has already paid $3.7 bn to settle legal cases in the U.S. over helping Americans evade taxes and the sale of mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.




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Taobao now sells tickets to outer space

By Ray Kwong | After Virgin Galactic hurt the feelings of the Chinese people earlier this year by banning Chinese nationals from its space flights, prospects looked dismal for mainland space freaks. Perhaps that’s why 305 buyers signed up within minutes last Thursday when Taobao (yes, the online bazaar where you can truly buy anything) opened up registration for trips to outer space with the Dutch firm Space Expedition Corp. (SXC).


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Amid a deep restructuring process, Spain gets new King

MADRID | By Juan Ballesta | Spain’s new King Felipe VI took the throne on Wednesday night, declaring his commitment to carrying out the transformations needed. The once severely crisis-battered country is finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, seeing his international financing costs going down and growth rate timidly increasing but still fighting with a huge unemployment rate and deficit.



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IMF’s warning to the FED

MADRID | By The Corner | The International Monetary Fund (IMF) revised downwards its growth forecasts for the US from 2.8% in April 2014 to 2%, and maintained 2015 outlook in 3%. Furthermore, the institution believes that the country will not achieve full employment before 2017.


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Germany is already being paid for borrowing

MADRID | By Bankinter analysts | Bundesbank’s monthly bulletin points that the German economy might slow down in the 2Q14, but that it would be reactivated in the 3Q14 thanks to the construction industry and the improvement of the confidence amongst households. Thus, the central bank raised its forecast for 2014 from 1.7% to 1.9%. In this context, Germany sold €1,511 million in 6-month bills with a negative interest rate: -0.0015%. Last May, the same bills were sold at +0.1089%, so we may conclude that the ECB’s negative deposit rate also helps the German debt.