Today’s market chatter in Spain
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | Market makers woke up with a torrent of data explaining how first quarter played out: Spanish public deficit, Eurozone’s activity indicators, and many more.
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FCC’s refinancing deal captures Spain’s market chatter today
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | Spanish builder and services firm FCC wrapped up a debt refinancing agreement worth €4.5bn with 99 % of creditor banks, which could turn debt into corporate capital. Market makers like ACF find the move possitive but warn that this move would increase debt average cost.
Market chatter: goodbye to a quite unsettling quarter
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | Today we close a rather complicated quarter. Beyond 10-year Spanish bonds, this term turned out a little unnerving with Ukraine’s crisis, fears of deleveraging in China and Fed’s “hawkish” messages. J.P. MORGAN downgraded 1Q14 global growth prediction from 3 % to 2.3 % and now reduces US’s from 2 % to 1.5 %. Harsh weather may have affected the GDP by up to 1 %.
A return to capital markets for Greek banks but no return to domestic lending
ATHENS | By Jens Bastian via Macropolis | In the future we may look back on the past two weeks as a watershed moment for Greek banks following the onset of the twin financial and sovereign debt crisis in 2009. After extensive and well prepared international road shows, financial institutions in Athens attracted unprecedented levels of foreign investors’ interest for bond placements and capital-raising initiatives.
Market chatter: Repsol, Gas Natural and much more
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | Repsol could sell its 30% participation in Gas Natural before the summer. 20 % of it would go for sovereign wealth funds (yet unidentified) and 10 % through quick placement of shares. RENTA 4 believes the company will monetize the operation if other worthy investment opportunities are identified. SABADELL finds the move logical within negotiations with La Caixa (which controlls 1/3 of Repsol’s capital). ACF highlights that Gas Natural shares are turning out very profitable in dividend for Repsol (4.5%), making this sale not that attractive for that firm.
Investors bet on Europe despite the deflation risk
MADRID | By Francisco López | Investors keep betting on European actives, even though the eurozone economies are facing some serious problems: deflation risk, unemployment records and even a possible war in Ukraine. Why does the European stock exchanges dominate analysts’ recommendations?
The next stage of the Japan trade
LONDON | By Barclays analysts | There appears to be increasing market doubt over the sustainability of the “Japan trade”. Year- to-date, the yen has rallied more than 3%, while the Nikkei is down 11%, placing it among the worst performing indices of the year. This is due in part to concerns over the impact of the forthcoming fiscal drag as the VAT hike takes effect on April 1st.
The Tea Party and Wall Street might not be best friends for ever, but they are for now
WASHINGTON | By Mike Konczal at The New Republic, via The Next New Deal | Our problem today was not caused by a lack of business and banking regulations,” argued Ron Paul in his 2009 manifesto End the Fed, which outlined a theory of the financial crisis that only implicated government policy and the Federal Reserve, while mocking the idea that Wall Street’s financial engineering and derivatives played any role. “The only regulations lacking were the ones that should have been placed on the government officials who ran roughshod over the people and the Constitution.”
If EU banking union doesn’t come true soon…
MADRID | By Álex García.
Today’s market chatter in Spain
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | Spanish government plans to create a state firm to house the failed toll roads, which will issue a 30-year bond of around 2.3 billion euros to pay the motorways’ debt. Also, creditor banks will be forced to accept a 50 percent haircut. In this regard, analysts at ACF and Sabadell don’t expect a considerable harm on licensed building companies’ share price.