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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According to the World Economic Forum, Canadian banks have been ranked as the soundest and most safe banks world-wide, this for 5 years in a row. Toronto Dominion Bank, the country's second largest lender, is the only publicly traded lender in the world which still carries a AAA label from Moody's (for what that's worth of ...
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 ...
The headlines over the coming days will be in the style of "Belgian debt perceived as core reliable AAA". And most likely a lot of politicians will grasp the opportunity to say that our present government is doing a hell of a job, just have a look at those yields (all time low 10y < 2.5%). Now we can always be cheerful about ...
Coincidentally or not, but emerging markets from very different angles have crossed my path over the past 24 hours. I have been to a presentation of a major fund manager today, looked upon various CDS premia world-wide and came across the 2 main leading articles in the latest Bloomberg magazine which both focus on the outlook for ...
Yesterday, leading rating agency Standard & Poor's maintained its credit rating for Japan at AA-. And although the state of public finance should give some reason for concern, S&P nevertheless is quite confident that Japan's future current account will be sufficient in the black in order to absorb the domestic funding needs. Well, ...
In my previous posting dd 16/01, I forgot to mention some important leverage factors as well. I therefore take the privilege to give you an update with new numbers, taken from a very recent McKinsey study on global debt and debt deleveragingThe following chart gives you the facts on the composition of total debt across main ...
We in Europe - the old continent - have taken notice since late Friday that our credibility as a debtor has been put into question. We were warned earlier that something was waiting to happen. Now that it has materialized, I nevertheless have some questions running through my mind lately, based upon the following fundamentals ...
Politics and adapting to the new normal, it seems a bridge too far for many amongst us. And it's not restricted to Europe with its more than fair share of anglo-saxon media attention and frequent abuse. Pretty soon, it's back to Uncle Sam.During the silly season of 2011, we have witnessed a tough battle between bi-partizan ...
...we have some busy days ahead for the financial sector. Today, bondholders of Greek sovereign paper are to meet at Deutsche Bank's headquarters in Frankfurt to discuss the "voluntary" debt swap deal arranged on 26/10. The Institute of International Finance (representing 450 financial firms and chaired by DB CEO Ackerman) has ...
I like the Economist and I certainly like the Buttonwood column under Finance and Economics. In its latest edition (12/11/11, p.71), Buttonwood fires at increasing European political pressure (France/Italy) to hush up credit rating agencies in an effort of censorship. And the European paranoia concerning unfair treatment is wrong ...
"If it keeps on raining, levee's going to break. And when the levee breaks, I'll have no place to stay. Mean old levee, taught me to weep and moan, got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home, oh well, oh well..." From time to time, mother nature ...
It seems we have a week of urgent wake-up calls. Italy, the no3 of Europe, placed under supervision by the IMF. And Berlusconi forced to quit because Mr Market is losing its patience in view of 10 year yields now dangerously approaching the tipping point of 7%. He won't leave like that, opposition needs to vote "yes" on austerity, ...
The Financial Times Deutschland mentioned the fact that the EU is thinking about a ban on rating agencies issuing ratings on eurozone countries. It could be said that the ratings agencies are like thermometers that provoke a rise of temperature. But this is probably not the right angle to look at this possible action. The reason ...
Tomorrow yet again an important G20 summit will kick off in Paris. It will be the third time in 5 weeks that Tim Geithner will visit the "old" continent. And his mission this time is no different, ie telling European policy makers to "move fast". Earlier this week, Geithner told Bloomberg Television that "the Europeans recognize ...
The renowned American financial expert and much appreciated Econopolis- and Econoshock-contact John Mauldin very accurately predicted the financial crisis of 2008 and the recession that resulted from it. In his latest newsletter "Thoughts from the Frontline" (www.johnmaulding.com and ...
Op vrijdag verlaagde S&P de lange termijn kredietwaardigheid van de VS van AAA naar AA+. Het in het kader van het schuldenplafond goedgekeurde plan zou “onvoldoende zijn om het schuldenniveau te stabiliseren”. Het ratingbureau toont zich ook bezorgd over “verdere politieke risico’s”. Ratingbureau ‘s hebben wel ...
When Nick Leeson had a problem in hiding his first transaction losses, he created an error account called 88888. Why ? Because 8 is a lucky number in Asia (China) and so the account was labelled 5 eight because it could use all the luck it could get. It seems Chinese auditors are on the same track.Last week the official Chinese ...
"Reprofiling", "structured default", "volontary re-investment of proceeds" , we lately have been avalanched by numerous euphimisms on something very straightforward : Greece and Europe are in dire straits, a very precarious situation to say the least. On the Greek restructuring and how to organize it, the battle over semantics is ...
Following the successful launch of Microsoft bonds late last year, Google has ensured itself a long term funding at benign market conditions. Too good to be true or are there other market forces at work ?Let's first recapitulate the operations Microsoft (AAA) executed in autumn 2010. In September, it issued corporate bonds for a ...
