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Markets 12th March 2012

Threadneedle: healthy demand for equities after liquidity boost in EU, UK, Japan

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…

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Markets 9th March 2012

The Greek swap-opera

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…

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Markets 8th March 2012

Lose any hope of escaping a stern haircut on Greek debt holdings

By Juan Pedro Marín Arrese, in Madrid | Those hedge funds resisting debt restructuring shouldn’t nurture any hope to save their money. The titles they hold might be governed by international law. But should Greece turn off the tap, counting on CDS to fill the gap might prove a delusion. Credit default guarantors have already warned they will simply fail to respect commitments entered. The ensuing claims might fatten law…

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Markets 8th March 2012

Mortgage rate swaps have become Bankinter’s nightmare

By Capital Madrid | After thousands of Spaniards marched last week throughout the country under the banner of alleged bank abuses, the hunt continues with legal action against one of the products entities often used during the bubble years: the interest rate swaps, also called ‘clips’. Bankinter recently gained one more adverse sentence, which brought its naughty account to 162. The local court number 8 in Madrid declared the nullity of…

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Markets 7th March 2012

“Opening the kimono” of the US market-maker activity

NEW YORK | There are more than 20.000 market makers only in the US. Now one of them –a very, very big one, JP Morgan– has broken for the first time a code of silence among investment banks by revealing how much they rakes in as a market-maker. A market-maker quotes bid and offers prices for specific stocks or other securities that it holds. Its aim is to make money by…

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Markets 6th March 2012

UK investment industry looks on the raising-dividend side

LONDON | 58pc of  the Association of Investment Companies or AIC members in the UK growth and income sector have been able to raise dividends for at least each of the last 10 years. AIC published Tuesday the results of its latest research and reminded investors of its associated firms’ main track record, which described as ‘impressive’. In the longer term, though, only 46pc of uk growth and income sector have been…

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Markets 5th March 2012

Ibex35 non-financial companies hoard €40 billion in cash, cash equivalents

MADRID | Large Madrid-listed non-financial firms accumulate cash positions at year-end record, as data released Monday showed. A study by El País over the consolidated balance sheets of the 26 Spanish non-financial companies on the Ibex 35 unveiled that the corporations closed last year with €21.827 billion in cash and €18.344 billion more in cash equivalents. In total, €40.171 billion, to which it must be added undrawn credit lines. Spain’s most creditworthy companies,…

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Markets 5th March 2012

AXA Real Estate: growth across EU due to bank deleveraging, market mispricing

LONDON | AXA Real Estate confirmed Monday that transaction volumes across the full risk spectrum of opportunistic to core have substantially increased in Europe. The real estate portfolio and asset fund was during 2011 a net buyer on behalf of its clients, with acquisitions totalling €2.6 billion, which included €900 million of committed development expenditure, compared to sales amounting to €2.1 billion. The financial management firm was active throughout Europe, in the economically stronger euro…

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Markets 5th March 2012

The giant beast of Credit Default Swaps is getting nervous

NEW YORK | Officials from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association have stated that Greece has not had a ‘credit event’ and credit default swap payments will not be triggered, at least not yet. The body’s decision has reignited the debate over the usefulness of CDS. CDS are a US$32 trillion market, which is more than twice the US gross domestic product and more than twice the national debt. They…

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Markets 2nd March 2012

Barclays’ subsidiary to clean balance sheet in tune with Spanish reform

By Julia Pastor, in Madrid | The British prime minister David Cameron may perform his isolationist act as theatrically as he likes, but facts are stubborn showing that the British banking sector very much prefers to take advantage of the European Central Bank help when available. Barclays, one of the British banking sector’s heavyweights, has confirmed that its order in the last ECB liquidity operation with a three years maturity…