Today, we have reserved a guest post for Jan De Blonde who is very actively engaged in sustainable farmland investment abroad. Jan is ...
My friend the equity racehorse sent me me the following interesting link which appeared on Dutch television and which basically ...
Vorige zondag (6 mei 2012) verscheen het volgend interview in De Zondag:
Elk jaar omtrent deze tijd publiceert BP zijn Statistical Review of World Energy. Bijna 50 pagina’s grotendeels gevuld met tabellen ...
Door een abrupt beëindigde skivakantie (nauwelijks 50 meter op de latten gestaan) bracht ik de rest van de week haast immobiel en al ...
Well, it's not exactly Moody's but more precisely Fitch, sending out messages which are "surprising" to say the least. Remember ...
Davos, setting of the Thomas Mann novel "Der Zauberberg" and sheltering famous people throughout history such as ...
Following our adventures in today's every changing moods in the world of finance, it's not a bad thing to assess volatility as a ...
You may remember I wrote a piece on Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) , Heineken and Fraser & Neave (F&N) when I was in Singapore earlier ...
My dear friend Sideshow Bob sent me a short note which I think deserves some attention. It opens up the discussion on one of the most ...
Geen kat die deze stelling zal betwisten, maar de impact ervan op de Chinese economie wordt vermoedelijk zwaar onderschat. We hebben ...
De kogel is door de kerk, iedereen van ons kan straks aandeelhouder van Facebook worden. Intekenen op een IPO is echter niet altijd ...
Apple kwam de afgelopen week met de langverwachte medeling over hun spaarpot van 100 miljard $. Een mogelijke overname is nog niet in ...
On March 14th, the Media Innovation Center was launched (under the wings of the IBBT) and baptized 'Mix'. Its goal is to support and ...
Yesterday Fitch released a report with some arithmetics and outlook on the ageing population and how the developed west so far has ...
According to the World Economic Forum, Canadian banks have been ranked as the soundest and most safe banks world-wide, this for 5 ...
Gemini, the immortal twins Castor and Pollux, in this case Dublin and Cork. We picked up an interesting story from out of Bloomberg ...
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A lot of scenarios have circulated ever since the Greek debt crisis escalated and we got contagion into the Mediterranean periphery. And all these elements were related to bailouts, fiscal consequences of bailouts on core European countries (eg possible eurobonds etc), too big to bail (Spain/Italy) and rescue funds, whether or not ...
It seems that the announcement effect of EMU bond buying did not miss its purpose when looking at how the risk-on status of the market performed over the past 4 or 5 weeks. And it is of course not restricted to equity markets world-wide, the return numbers on various European sovereigns are very impressive indeed to say the ...
We continue our holiday journey across the globe in our currency series and decided to take a stop down under. Now this is an interesting stop for many reasons. The Australian economy has since 2009 being put forward as an example of a bullet proof economy when it comes to sailing through this global financial crisis. Impeccable ...
We have been searching a mighty long time but we finally found it : A piece of objective Anglo-Saxon coverage on the current sovereign debt crisis in the developed world. And it involves a respected UK blog comment criticizing a US some how "biased" view on the European and sovereign debt crisis in general. Now what is it all about ...
In our recent blog conversations, we were already alluding to this inevitable happening and I am afraid we have arrived at this point (already intra-day yesterday). The Spanish yield curve has inverted, meaning short term yields now being above the levels of of the longer part of the curve (7y+). Under normal conditions, this could ...
Just when you thought you were safe, a last minute move from our dear friends in the US are spoiling the party. Moody's lowered the outlook to"negative" for the AAA ratings of Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg (!). Yes,you read this well, even our friends over in Luxembourg - with only 3 government bond ...
Some weeks ago we mentioned the current pressure on some safe havens in keeping their currency peg. In the case of the European periphery, the game is focused on Switzerland and Denmark, having all the trouble in the world to stop appreciating following the declining faith in the single currency (or at least in some of its ...
Over the weekend, I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine on today's surrealism reigning on financial markets. Referring to a previous posting - "Dude, where is my yield" - we quickly altered to another issue with the 64,000$ question at the end : If interbank market rates are manipulated (rigged libor) and if ...
In our series of conspiracy theories during the silly season, we would like to turn our eyes towards the equity market after last week's adventures in Libor land. But before we do that, let's just first reconsider the following conversation which took place some years ago in a San Pedro Police station : Verbal Kint : Who is ...
It's the silly season and as far as financial markets are concerned, we have to conclude à la Monty Python : "Stop this sketch, it's becoming too silly". In the current era of financial repression, we have witnessed mind blowing levels of interest rates. The following table gives you a short overview of the current government bond ...
In our trip around the world during the present holidays, we decided to take a small stop in Santa Fé De Bogota : Columbia es pasion ! Indeed, the tourist guide of Colombia will overwhelm you with the following nice features : mother nature's most beautiful spot in South America (true), amazing rich coffee, amazing soccer players, ...
European stocks gained as China reported the slowest expansion in three years, fueling speculation policy makers will add to stimulus measures. Asian shares and U.S. index futures advanced . Zo begon Bloomberg op vrijdag 13 juni, nadat China bekend maakte dat de economie 7,6% groeide, of zo u het anders wil ...
The FOMC minutes are out and it seems the committee of US rate setters is no longer unanimous on the issues. An extension of Operation Twist was the compromise outcome and there is a reason for that. And in addition, they softened the language even more by the previous commitment of rates on hold to at least Spring 2014 changing ...
Today, the following manifesto appeared in the blog sphere : "In support of a European banking union, done properly - a manifesto by economists in Germany, Austria and Switzerland". For the link, I would like to refer to : http://www.voxeu.org/article/manifesto-banking-union-economists-germany-austria-and-switzerland The ...
The gold price had been caught in a 20-year bear market when Gordon Brown decided to sell off 400 tons of Britain's gold reserves at rock-bottom prices. That more or less marked the bottom of the ferocious bear market. But that's just the way markets behave. Bear and bull markets do not usually end without a 'grand finale'. In 1979 ...
We are now some 5 years into this crisis and we have witnessed some non-text book interventions in terms of substantial large amounts. Having a look at how balance sheets of central banks have exploded, it's really "de jamais vue", in some cases interventions in between 25% and 30% of GDP. It started out with the FED's Tarp ...
Yesterday we had triple whammy : 28 Spanish banks dramatically downgraded & Moodys threatening to cut the Spanish sovereign to junk ; then came the news that Monte dei Paschi will be bailed by the Italian government through means of so-called Tremonti bonds. And finally the presentation of Herman Van Rompuy's 7 page road map ...
Geen kat die deze stelling zal betwisten, maar de impact ervan op de Chinese economie wordt vermoedelijk zwaar onderschat. We hebben het uiteraard over de geboorte beperkende maatregel dat het grootste deel van het land al decennia lang slechts één kind mag hebben.China beheerst de wereldeconomie zoals wellicht nog nooit een land ...
The most acute problems are on Europe's periphery, where many smaller economies are experiencing crises strongly reminiscent of past crises in Latam America and Asia : Latvia is the new Argentina. Paul Krugman, NYT 15/12/08 (slightly wonkish) Yesterday, we picked ...
At Econopolis, we always appreciate it when our faithful audience mingles into the debate of politics, economics, philosophy and the other small things making our lives beautiful. Today we bring you a contribution by Franck Vanhee. It might be poetic at first sight, the underlying thoughts will become crystal clear throughout the ...
