UBS | This time around consensus is unanimous and the question is more about the FOMC’s wording and guidance than the actual rate hike, although we assume the Fed is going to hike 25bp tonight. What does this tightening mean for the European banks and insurers?
Chitra Subramaniam | The very talented Swiss artist Patrick Chapatte’s 2006 cartoon to mark the start of the international climate talks in Nairobi in November 2006 could well have been repeated for the recently concluded climate talks in Paris. Nobody is quite sure what was achieved, but everyone is relieved that talks didn’t crash.
BARCLAYS | The final count of the votes confirmed a super – majority (two – thirds of the seats) in the National Assembly for the opposition . The result exceeded the market ’s expectations of a simple majority and, in our view, proves that it has been under estimating the probabilities of a political transition.
The Agora via Macropolis | Two of the key participants in Greece’s financing programme, the European Stability Mechanism’s Klaus Regling and the head of the Eurogroup Working Group Thomas Wieser, gave interviews to two Greek Sunday newspapers in which they covered a wide range of issues relating to the latest developments in Greece.
Guntram B. Wolff via Caixin | The European Commission recently presented its proposals for European bank deposit insurance. Officials hope to stabilize the banking system and decouple bank financing costs from any solvency issues affecting their host states. This would achieve the original aim of a proposed banking union by breaking the link between states and their banking systems.
The Paris climate change summit (COP21) felt like the last opportunity to curb the threat of climate change and what was at stake, and remains so, is the world economy. But fixing the global target for maximum warming at 1.5C, when a minimum of 2C was seen as necessary, and an optimal scenario of 4C had been considered, does not appear to meet expectations. Particularly if the agreement does nothing to pave the the way to achieving this.
James Alexander via Historinhas| The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament recently held a session on NGDP Targeting. The French paper starts with a review of the literature on Inflation Targeting and says things went well until the crisis. A caveat they mention is that since both IT regimes and non-IT regimes did well in bringing down inflation it is really too hard to tell if IT was all that superior.
UBS | A – shares have seen choppy trading since November amid Fed rate hike expectations, expansion of European QE, inclusion of the Rmb into the SDR basket, easing of curbs on prop trading at brokers and resumption of IPOs.
BARCLAYS | On 1 December 2015, the day after the IMF Board voted to include China’s currency in its Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket, we hosted a conference call with Barry Eichengreen, a professor at Berkeley and an expert in the field of international economics , to put China’s SDR inclusion in perspective. Highlights from the call are below.
Nick Malkoutzis via Macropolis | Greece activated last Thursday the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism, agreed to allow Frontex to operate on its border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and triggered the Rapid Border Intervention Teams (RABIT) mechanism for help with Aegean patrols. But what should have been a moment of exemplary cooperation for the EU felt very tawdry.