LONDON | It was inevitable. The UK woke up Thursday saddled by a 50/50 chance of losing the maximum award of its national borrowing capabilities. After all, as Santander analysts poke out of Fitch Ratings’ statement over its outlook downgrade of the triple A, which British sovereign bonds still hold, the growing public debt to GDP ratio is set to approach the edge of the top-gun category. The figures came…
Long term refinancing operation 2 or liquidity injections into Spanish credit entities via the European Central Bank rose in February to €152.432 billion from €133.177 in January. But, contrary to what most European banks seem to be doing, that is, parking capital in the central bank’s deposit facility, Spain’s banks prefer to take advantage of the rate gap and let slip in profits by purchasing sovereign debt. Bond holdings have…
LONDON | The future is an economic frightening sight for the younger generations in the UK. Up to 79% of Britons anticipate their income as pensioners will be too low or inflation will erode their savings. Only 26% of people believe they will be better off than their parents when they retire. A survey released Wednesday by Vision Critical shows that more than 17.2 million of British people think their personal finances…
Semiotics of those now popular images go little farther beyond a simple, unsubtle fact: Spain’s finance minister Luis de Guindos is certainly not familiar with the sort of humour the Eurogroup’s chief, Jean-Claude Juncker, displayed Monday when he took Guindos’ neck between his bare hands ahead of their meeting. The prime minister of Luxembourg would next time be best advised to gently pat his Spanish colleague’s back; after all, the whole…
LONDON | Investment house Schroders brings in its latest ‘Economic and Strategy Viewpoint‘ the final word about austerity versus money printing. It is a conciliatory one. Well, sort of: chief economist Keith Wade and Europe economist Azad Zangana set the record seamless and believe each team is right, at least, about the other team: they all are wrong. On one hand, Wade and Zangana say they hold the “belief that…
LONDON | Global asset manager Threadneedle pointed at liquidity operations carried out by most G20 governments as the primordial reason behind the recent rally that the equity sector has experienced. “We see the LTROs, the recent £50bn extension to quantitative easing by the Bank of England and the ¥10trn increase in the Bank of Japan’s asset purchase scheme as activities that boost liquidity and are likely to increase demand for…
A curated selection of links we hope can enlighten us all; some come from our corner, some do from other corners of the net. And as always, our comment widgets are anxious to get your suggestions. Europe needs a new …Napoleon Here they come, the peripherals rebel! If you are looking for EU imbalances, try the German surplus What the German commentators think of the ECB’s LTROs Places women (and everyone…
LONDON | UPDATE | Unanimously. The International Swaps & Derivatives Association resolved Friday evening the last unknown about Greece’s restructuring debt process. The Greek government used collective action clauses to drag a small group of investors into accepting losses under the nation’s laws. The association ruled that this could be considered as a credit event that triggers payouts on credit default swaps or CDS, a market whose participants were anxious while waiting…
LONDON | Half an hour before the deadline passed at 20:00 GMT on Friday, the Greek minister for international economic relations Constantine Papadopoulos confidently told Sky News in London that default had been averted. “The indications we have are that the debt swap seems to be going well. Greece will get the necessary bailout as we have now cleared the major hurdle and can look forward to a new beginning,” Papadopoulos explained, although…
LONDON | The British Property Federation issued a warning Thursday to Chancellor George Osborne ahead of possible Treasury action to close a stamp duty loophole through with foreign fortunes would be avoiding tax. The bill, according to official calculations, amounts to £1 billion, but UK’s property sector said that Osborne “must tread carefully with ‘super-rich’ stamp duty reform” and “tread lightly with any anti-avoidance intervention.” The BPF admitted there is a the…