volatility

ibex chulisima

Ibex 35 profits (-13,6%), marked by banking sector, macro slowdown and emerging markets

Santander Corporate & Investment | The publication of results is nearing its end, and European company profits have shown resilience in face of a global environment dominated by uncertainty: the trade war, volatility in emerging markets and weakness in their currencies, Brexit, the growth of populism etc. Spanish companies are very exposed to international markets, given that only a third of their benefits come from the domestic market.


volality

Uncertainty? Volatility index 20% below its historical average

After a period of gloomy macro data, market watchers are starting to see the light. According to Allianz research, the share of “bulls” has increasedfrom around 30% at the start of the year to currently 54% net. At the same time, the volatility index is some 20% below its historical average, in spite of the much greater uncertainty facing the world economy.


JuanArena TC

“Zero interest-rate policy means there are bubbles everywhere”

By Fernando Barciela | Board member at Ferrovial, amongst other Spanish listed companies, Juan Arena was President of Bankinter from 2002 to 2007.  “The crisis comes when assets prices drop. Then we have to choose between debt haircuts or raising asset prices via inflation and money printing,” he says.



central bank1

“Deflation Remains More of a Threat to Growth Than Low Interest Rates”

Are we putting the responsilibity of exiting the crisis on central banks’ shoulders? Is ECB’s president Mario Draghi doing traders a favour by playing down the ECB’s responsibility for contributing to volatility? Professor of Financial Mathematics at Bocconi’s University Marcello Minenna answers to these questions from Milan and argues that a low interest rate environment is here to stay.


Stock Markets

Greek deal curbs volatility

The Corner | July 14, 2015 | Stocks and bonds’ behaviour will still depend on how the Greek crisis unfolds but macro and corporate results should start to gain some traction.


imbroglio

Better red than dead

MADRID | June 21, 2015 | By JP Marín Arrese | Bertrand Russell coined this famous phrase when the cold war nuclear escalation threatened the survival of the human race. A useful tip for intractable confrontations where sanguine sentiments lead conflicting sides to prefer collective ruin rather than reaching a compromise. The Greek imbroglio is a good example.


No Picture

How are investors positioned and where is money flowing?

ZURICH | UBS analysts | ETF flows continue to reward positive economic data from the US with spectacular equity inflows for the second consecutive month. Europe was once again a laggard in both economic terms and in flows: Germany, Spain, Italy, and France, saw net outflows in December due to a combination of growth, Grexit and deflation concerns.


vix index

Volatility: Buy some protection before heading to the beach

MADRID | The Corner | “We have been living in an unusually low volatilities -both implied and realized- environment,” JP Morgan’s Fernando Cavia argues. But the last two weeks analysts are seeing a change of trend: protection is gaining fans among European institutional investors who see some threat to equities’ potential.

 


vinals

IMF warns about the “optimism of the financial markets”

MIAMI | By Pablo Pardo | The director of the IMF’s Department of Financial and Monetary Affairs, José Viñals, has declared himself “worried” about “the optimism of the financial markets.” Viñals made his remarks at the LSE Global Pensions Program, organized by the London School of Economics, Santander Asset Management and Novaster. To an audience of around one hundred pension fund managers and regulators, most of them from Latin America, the IMF official remarked that “everybody investing” in what he called “heterogeneous assets” has “made money” this year, in spite of the fact that the “economic news, ‘surprises’ have been relatively bad.”