MADRID | By The Corner | European banks have strenghtened their capital ratios for the upcoming stress tests and the AQR, whose results will be known after the summer. In that sense, between July 2013 and May 2014, EZ lenders increased their base capital by €45 billion, although it wasn’t entirely by issuing shares but contingent convertible bonds (CoCos), by which they would have raised around €35 billion.
WASHINGTON | By Pablo Pardo | Mark Zandi is chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, the department in charge of consulting, advising and providing services for businesses and financial institutions. Among its many activities, the firm advices several European banks with regard to the EBA’s and ECB’s stress tests. Moody’s created this department in 2007, after buying Economy.com –Zandi’s analysis company.
MADRID | The Corner | Upcoming TLTRO in Sept 18 and Dec 11 will allow EZ banks to borrow an amount equivalent to 7% of what they currently lend to the private sector at 0.25% a year (excluding interbank loans and mortgages), breaking the vicious circle of high lending rates to companies, high credit risk and a sluggish economic performance, European Central Bank’s chief economist Peter Praet said on Wednesday.
SAO PAULO | By Marcus Nunes via Historinhas | That´s what Simon Wren-Lewis does in “Taylor Rules, the ZLB and Euro Diversity”: John Taylor originally suggested his rule as both a good guide to what central banks actually do and also one that “captures the spirit of the recent research”. It has been used ever since as a yardstick by which to measure monetary policy.
BERLIN | Alberto Lozano | While German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble preaches public budget consolidation all around the Eurozone, some Länder don’t seem to be taking his prescriptions seriously. Their deficits continue to grow in 2014 and moving away from the zero deficit goal in 2020 as required by the country’s constitution.
MADRID | The Corner | While the European inflation remained at 0.5%, credit steeply contracted in May thus neutralising the tepid improvement of the lending activity during March and April, according to Afi. The decline in private credit accelerated in small peripheral countries, but it continued the same in Spain and Italy.
LONDON | By Barclays analysts | Euro area “flash” June HICP remained unchanged at 0.5% y/y, in line with our and consensus expectations. Printing 0.51% y/y at two decimal places (very close to our 0.50% y/y estimate), today’s outturn is technically only very slightly higher than last month (0.49% y/y) and March (0.47% y/y). It remains nonetheless very weak indeed.
MADRID | Bankinter Analysis | 3Q Perspectives. Economic cycle speeds up and, mostly, gains soundness and reliability. Global growth will consolidate in 2014/2015 by +3%/+4% with positive news for developed countries and less favorable surprises in emerging markets. Japan and India are the exception to this rule. Spain will also amaze and main economic risk will lie in regional regional integrity issues whose aftermath may be undervalued, regardless the final scenario.
ZURICH | By UBS analysts | On 5 June, the ECB delivered a comprehensive monetary policy package, comprising cuts in the refi rate (from 0.25% to 0.15%), the deposit rate (from zero to -0.1%) and the marginal lending facility (from 0.75% to 0.4%). The ECB also rolled out the ‘full allotment mode’ – the commitment to supply unlimited liquidity (against adequate collateral) at the refi rate – from July 2015 to December 2016, and it will inject liquidity by ending the sterilisation of the Securities Markets Programme (SMP) portfolio.
ZURICH | By UBS analysts | The economic recovery in the Eurozone remains on track, but Q1 GDP data have once again shown the slow pace of growth and wide discrepancies that exist between individual economies. We cut our 2014 Eurozone growth forecast to 1.0% (from 1.1%) and continue to project 1.5% growth for 2015. Nominal GDP growth is expected to pick up to 1.7% this year and 2.7% in 2015, but nonetheless, it remains much slower than would be desirable to accelerate debt deleveraging