MADRID | April 8, 2015 | By Sean Duffy | The takeover of BG by Royal Dutch Shell for £47 billion (€64.8 billion) could be the opening salvo in a race to hoover up energy firms, as oil giants look to take advantage of a liquidity glut by honing in on companies destabilised by the volatility on oil markets.
The Corner | March 30, 2015 | Consumer confidence in the EMU is set to hit its highest level in eight years, with economic sentiment improving across the currency block. In Spain, inflation figures are expected to remain in negative territory, but with the caveat that lower prices are having positive knock-on effects elsewhere in the economy.
The Corner | March 11, 2015 | The market still points to emerging markets as one of the most vulnerable areas in the global economy. The absence of a rebound in the price of commodities (despite oil’s recent revaluation) is hampering these countries’ economic recovery.
How will the recent plunge in oil prices affect Asian countries?
WASHINGTON | By Pablo Pardo | Why do they call Economics the Dismal Science? In theory, because it is about using limited resources to satisfy unlimited needs. In practice because, no matter what, everything is always bad in Economics. Case in point: cheap oil.
MADRID | By Ana López-Varela | Some analysts believe the Spanish oil company has been extremely punished by the markets. Repsol’s announcement of its pulling out of Canary Islands exploration on Friday, along with the fall in oil prices and the purchase of Talisman Energy (for more than for $8.3 billion), has put the firm under the spotlight.
MADRID | By Ana López-Varela | “The OPEC will not cut production even if the oil barrel drops to $20.” The intentions of the Saudi Oil Minister, Ali al Naimi, are stark. But, how will the OPEC’s decision of maintaining the production quota at 30 million barrel per day affect the markets? And which are the forecasts that market watchers have regarding the oil? In general, they expect the prices to increase. However, futures traders remain more conservative.
MADRID | The Corner | It was expected that the fall in the oil prices would have an impact on the Spanish CPI, and that is what has happened. The CPI dropped by six tenths in December with respect to the previous month, while it reduced its interannual rate by seven tenths to -1.1%. This fall is the result almost exclusively of the decline of the oil price, whose fluctuations represent more than 50% of the variability of the Spanish inflation.
BERLIN | By Alberto Lozano | The German economy has gone from growing at 0.8% q-o-q earlier this year to being on the verge of recession as a result of the geopolitical situation, especially after the sanctions against Russia. Only now in December the country seems to recover its confidence. However, an expected GDP growth of around 1% in 2015 continues to be insufficient to spur growth in the Eurozone.
ZURICH | UBS analysts | We see 4 wins for Germany in a backdrop of falling oil prices
1) German equity market is not exposed to Oil & Gas earnings. 2) While our Oil & Gas analysts expect energy capex to fall by 10% (which could hurt a cyclical Germany), the overall fall to European capex is < 3%. Plus capex is already at a 23 year low – can it get much worse? 3) Our economists think lower oil triggers sovereign-based QE given their view it pushes CPI even lower than Tuesday’s 0.3%.