Ofelia Marín- Lozano | Interest rates on 10 year sovereign bonds, which are considered “risk free rate”, are at minimum but the European Stock Exchange, the EuroStoxx50 is where it was five year ago, despite the profits have grown by near 60%… Why have they triplicated the risk premium?
J.P. Marín- Arrese | The PM has dramatically shifted her Brexit plans. She no longer clings to forcefully maintaining them against all the odds. Her doomed proposal will suffer yet another rebuke from Parliament. Immediately, she will put on vote the ‘no deal’ option, betting it will sink deep enough to thoroughly disallow its supporters.
Three years on from its vote on EU membership and the UK still has little idea what its future relationship with the EU might turn out to be. Under pressure from europhile members of her cabinet, Theresa May has finally decided that running the Brexit clock down is in nobody’s interest. Instead, she has now taken the perhaps equally disappointing decision to kick the Brexit can further down the road, if politically necessary.
Tristan de Bourbon (London) | The uncertainty of the Brexit is prolonged and a solution before day D does not seem possible. The risk is already too intense for many companies, which have begun to accelerate their contingency plans. In November Carolyn Fairbairn, the Director General of the Confederation of British Industry, the main platform of leading managers, warned that companies were stockpiling their products, investing in warehouses, cutting jobs.
via The Conversation | Recent data of recession in Italy and deceleration in the last quarter in German have sounded the alarm, although France and Spain have slightly increased their growth. It is certain that many risks exist, almost all geopolitical, which, if they came to pass, would have a negative impact on economic activity. And it is also hard to glimpse anything that would allow faster growth.
Italy escaped the EU excessive deficit procedure for now because the Italian government has curbed the three main electoral promises by underestimating the costs of the planned measures. A report by Flossbach von Storch Research Institute explores the different scenarios for the procedure.
Shaun Riordan | President Trump is in trouble. He lost control of the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections. But Trump is not like most US Presidents. Moreover, he knows that moderating his position will lose his base and consequently the 2020 election.This is all bad news for Europe. Germany’s economy is already teetering on the edge of recession. Tariffs on car exports to the US (not to mention a no deal Brexit) would push it over the edge, dragging the rest of Europe down with it.
EU Parliament elections on 23–26 May 2019 look set to boost the share of populist parties in parliament by a meaningful amount and have therefore drawn the attention of financial markets of late. However, analysts at PIMCO think the election is unlikely to result in meaningful change for European politics or the markets for several reasons.
via The Conversation | Numerous amendments are being negotiated in the UK parliament in an attempt to break the Brexit stalemate. There does not seem to be a clear majority for any specific way forward with Brexit and the parliamentary arithmetic has so far worked against the government. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking before Britain leaves the EU without a deal in place and reverts to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
On Tuesday Banco Santander announced that it will not exercise the repurchase of its contingent convertible bonds (CoCos) – the AT1 – of 1.5 billion euros and coupon of 6.25%. The bank, which referred to financial reasons, had already warned in its presentation of results that it would only make the call if conditions were adequate.