Santander| Not only credit card volumes have jumped to record highs ($1.1trn) with the drain on the savings rate. Overdue (10%) and very overdue (90+ days) debt rates are also jumping, already at more than 10-year highs: 6.4% vs 4% in 4Q22. This phenomenon, still not very visible in the economy, is also starting to spread to global default rates. And not only because we are facing the highest number…
MADRID | By The Corner | The number of trade assets obtained on deferred terms and returned unpaid by households and companies plummeted by 25.2% in May, according to Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE). Thus, defaulting in commerce puts together 25 months of year-on-year drops.
Argentina has so far led investors to believe that it is ready to default if necessary to avoid the New York court’s ruling. That reaction, although less than surprising, would worsen further its lack of credibility.
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | The Greek restructuring has been a most impressive achievement. But it has fallen only on private investors’ heads. Public bondholders, like the European Central Bank (ECB), refused to take in their share of losses as everyone else did. When the EBC’s governor Mario Draghi was asked about the ECB’s special protection, turning the central bank into a super-privileged investor, he replied: “I can answer…
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…
By Fernando González Urbaneja, in Madrid | Explaining the Spanish public deficit problem in 2012 in terms of confrontation between the government of Mariano Rajoy and Brussels is wrong and misleading. So far Brussels has not penalised members who do not meet their programmes, but has rather come to help achieve the objective, with more or less enthusiasm and more or less requirements imposed. Brussels may begin proceedings for an excessive…
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…
LONDON | Standish, the Boston-based specialist management firm for investments in fixed income markets, issued a press release regarding the ongoing process in Greece after the country’s parliament passed a new fiscal austerity plan. The current Greek government intends to slash its debt-to-GDP levels to 120% in 10 years. Tom Higgins, global macroeconomic strategist at Standish, believes that the prospects of a Greek default are not yet confirmed, even as euro zone leaders…
Bankinter analysts, in Madrid | This week is to be decisive for Greece. The technical team of the so-called troika of creditors (the IMF, European Union and European Central Bank) will return next Wednesday to Athens to see if the Greek government can clarify the figures it failed to make clear the previous week (this is why the troika left abruptly) and on Saturday, the euro group is meeting probably to…
Bankinter analysts, in Madrid | This week is to be decisive for Greece. The technical team of the so-called troika of creditors (the IMF, European Union and European Central Bank) will return next Wednesday to Athens to see if the Greek government can clarify the figures it failed to make clear the previous week (this is why the troika left abruptly) and on Saturday, the euro group is meeting probably to…