LONDON | This is what happens when the size of your construction sector remains under the 10 percent per GDP level, and the cost of credit for the State and the country’s banking sector is mild enough as to allow a slow deleverage process. The Nationwide house price index reported Thursday that UK house prices edge up by 0.3% in May. Over the last eighteen months, house prices have been remarkably stable…
buy cheap cigarettes By CaixaBank Research team, in Barcelona | In its World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts a slowdown in 2012 that should be followed by a weak recovery in 2013. The good performance of the US economy and the implementation of urgent policies in the euro area have lowered the risk of a sudden relapse and mean that the slowdown will be less than had…
By former director of the Catalan Institute for Finance, Ernest Sena | As if nothing had happened in Europe and the world over the past five years, the European Investment Bank continues working in the same line as it did fifty years ago. One must add that the EIB does very well what it does, nevertheless. The EIB is a key part of the European institutional framework. It was created in 1957 by…
MADRID | CAPITALMADRID.COM In the years 1992/93 the Spanish authorities struggled for longer than events recommended to keep the exchange rate of the peseta. Something similar might be going now on, but in another dimension, as the government still defends the good health of Spain's financial system. Back then, the stabilisation mechanism in place determined a fixed exchange rate for the peseta, let's say in short, against the German mark….
By Carlos Díaz Guell, in Madrid | Following the steps taken by the Spanish government to increase the requirements of capital provisions to the banking system from 7% to 30%, that is some €30 more billion, the Eurogroup, seen the distrust generated by the Bank of Spain’s actions, asked the Rajoy government to commission an independent valuation of property assets on the balance sheets of financial institutions. The international financial authorities and…
LONDON | The second release of UK GDP figures shed some light on the surprisingly large decline in GDP in the first quarter. The revised figures showed an even larger drop in the construction sector, with -18% or a -1.3% contribution to quarterly GDP growth. Not to worry, said JP Morgan in Monday’s note. Even if the figures are correct, however, the sector only represents 8% of economy (unlike in some other…
JLM Campuzano, Citi strategist, in Madrid | I read half surprised, half indignant, that a competitor released today an investor note in which the pending exit of Greece from the European Monetary Union is given a week as a deadline. The arguments are all too well known: the Hellenic authorities have already breached the adjustment plans, the country’s political parties will not come together in any of the urgent agreements…
LONDON | How much money did the UK government borrow in April? Less than you might have assumed. In fact, the public sector borrowing report for the last month brought strong surpluses: net figures excluding financial interventions gave a surplus of £16.5 billion compared to a deficit of £9.1 billion in April last year, and the total net volume saw a surplus of £18.8 billion from a deficit of £6.2 billion in…
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | We either reinforce the political union in the European Monetary Union or let the monster simply die away. These are the actual choices we have, and one must admit that a euro termination does not sound as the craziest option, not after four years of unstoppable recession and walking at the brink of the abyss. It is a possibility no one wants to study,…
BARCELONA | The Spanish financial markets regulator CNMV admitted Copenhagen-based Greentech’s voluntary cash tender offer on all ordinary shares of Fersa. Greentech had submitted last Friday its prospectus to the CNMV for its voluntary public offer of acquisition of 100% of Fersa, offering €0.40 in cash for each Fersa share. By submitting the prospectus and legal documentation required, Greentech requested that the regulator approved its offer for the Catalan renewable energy…