Atul Singh via Fair Observer | The Belt and Road Initiative is China’s bold and risky response to internal tensions and external pressure, but it is not backed by an inspiring idea.
Peter Isackson via Fair observer | Though Steve Bannon’s English hero, Boris Johnson, is (momentarily) in charge of the chaos in the UK, his Italian champion, Matteo Salvini, is out.
Renta 4 | The September meetings of the Federal Reserve and ECB will be key in economic and market developments in the Autumn. The market discounts with 58% probability an ECB cut in the deposit rate to -0.6%.
Andressa Tezine (Fidelity) | The sharp fall in Argentina´s bonds and international shares, after President Macri´s surprise defeat in Argentine primary elections, could spread to other Latin American and emerging markets while investors look to re-balance their positions.
Jose Ramón Díez Guijarro (Bankia Estudios) | In the years prior to Trump´s arrival in the White House, exchange rates had lost their importance in central bank strategy, especially in large economies like the Eurozone and US.
Fidelity | It is not common to experience the oscillations in sentiment we have seen in recent months. Markets surged optimistically during most of 2018, but this ended in the last quarter of the year. This year has returned to optimism, although not at the levels we saw at different stages on 2018.
The Spanish competition regulator (CNMC – which regulates telecommunications in Spain) has published market data for December 2018.In the opinion of analysts at Santander Research, this is the best news in Spain’s telecommunications market data in December, “given that during the previous 18 months, customer turnover grew continuously yoy.”
In addition to the losses from the 34 day US administrative shutdown, which were set at $11 Bn, there are other reasons to expect a less positive tone in the US than the positive current one. For the analysts at Intermoney, the only aspect able to explain this is the so called Powell put whose effect will be temporary. But where does this concept come from?
The political instability is not just a Spanish phenomenon. We are far from the climate of the thirties in the 20th century, but the increase in nationalist populism is worrying. 2019 is replete with uncertainties, but it is also true that unemployment in the European Union has fallen below 8% for the first time since the crisis and that in Spain the number of people affiliated with Social Security has recovered pre-2008 levels.
DWS | How should a hedge fund have positioned itself if it had known the U.S. Federal Reserve’s (Fed’s) decisions and press release a day ahead of the market? Until lunchtime on Wednesday noon its staff might have reasonably concluded that the material contained preciously little actionable information. On paper, it would have all looked exactly as expected, leaving limited scope for any meaningful market reaction. This is not, of course, how things actually turned out.