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Insurers having to rethink their business model. India makes a giant leap forward in tax reform. Headlines * FT - Venezuela's armed forces tighten grip as food crisis grows 7/29. Maduro has handed over more powers to General Padrino Lopez making him "the most powerful man in Venezuela.
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Helicopter money coming to Japan? GMO on EU immigration and the Brexit. Hong Kong and China at a cross road. ECB coming up against its quantitative easing boundaries. Headlines * FT - BP draws line under Gulf spill costs 7/14. All told BP's costs from the Deepwater Horizon disaster
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The bad debt in Italian banks is looking like a BIG problem. The world has become more reliant on Middle Eastern oil. Not looking so rosy for hedge fund reinsurers. Headlines * Bloomberg - Spain Runs Out of Workers With Almost 5 Million Unemployed 6/30. "The unemployment rate is too
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The shipping world is about to change with the opening of new Panama Canal locks. U.S. shale reserves: now you see me, now you don’t. Headlines * FT - Coal use plunges as China cuts back and US turns to gas 6/8. "Global consumption and production levels for
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The volume of Chinese wealth-management products is becoming unwieldy. Banks have had enough of this negative interest rate nonsense. Headlines * WSJ - 'Niger Delta Avengers' Sabotage Oil Output 6/5. Bottom line, these guys are messing things up in Nigeria by seeking to bring Nigerian oil output to
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Loans taken out by commodity rich countries in the good old days to be paid back in oil have become a major liability. The financial outlook for Chinese firms isn’t looking so good. Negative yields on corporate bonds – hey, it’s better than what you can get for the
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Remember, crises end (oil prices most likely won’t stay low forever). Headlines * WSJ - Apple Takes Billion Dollar Detour to Fix Troubles in China 5/13. Apple uses one of its $233bn in cash and the like to take a stake in loss making Didi Chuxing, the synergies appear limited,
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The virtuous cycle of Chinese real estate development. Global liquidity trap. What’s driving the China M&A boom? In an effort to ease readability and to assist with navigation of the weekly posts I have updated the format this week. I am removing the featured articles/themes from
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China’s media censorship. Life insurance companies face a daunting future. S&P earnings not quite so. Commercial real estate values in limbo. Some weeks I wonder if there will be enough quality material to post and then there are weeks like this one when there is a deluge.
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Negative yielding government bonds. Lending to Emerging Markets hits the brakes. Japanese 10-year bond crosses the zero bound. Three key articles that stand out this week are 1) Elaine Moore, Robin Wigglesworth, and Leo Lewis’ "Government bond yields send recession signal" in the Financial Times, 2) Jonathan
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Challenges of being born a millennial. Continued struggles for Energy & Mining companies. Zika virus. While these postings cover articles from Friday – Thursday, I would be remiss not to mention the Bank of Japan’s move to lower the interest rate on excess reserves from 0.1% to minus 0.
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The Fed did it! Diversify, diversify, diversify. Technology offers a chance at low hanging fruit. High Ground Looking over a Swamp, aka Cheniere. The Fed finally raised interest rates! Definitely one of the three themes from the week, which I’ll cover only briefly in Christopher Condon’s coverage in