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 new comments have showed up recently on gold and especially the gold fever of some central banks. The objective of this blog is to shed some light on the numbers and the possible implications going forward. First of all the numbers and more important, the evolution of the numbers. From the World Gold Council, we could ...
I have been feeling a lttle bit under the weather but luckily, we can post some stuff with a little help from our friends. Sideshow Bob volunteered and came up with the following short consideration about the impact of Basel III going softer on banks and capital cushion requirements. It also touches the vital aspect of financial ...
QE3 and the morning after, what's the score ? Well, considering it was pretty well wired, market reactions so far are not that exuberant in terms of volatility. Ben's message was simple : Nevermind the greenshoots appearing, we are going "all in", no matter. Until unemployment does not dive under the FED's 6,5% target, we will be ...
A month ago, the IMF cut it growth outlook for Latin America. It was done against a backdrop of deteriorating global growth, contagion risk of the euro-crisis and the Chinese dragon running out of fire coming out of its mouth. The IMF concludes : "Policymakers in the region must be alert to spillovers from weaker prospects in ...
Yesterday I attended the first day of a 2 day seminar at the NBB on "Endogenous Financial risk". The objective was to shed light on systematic risk and if remotely possible give some guidelines on the way forward. What have I learned ?The first presentation I attended was called "Measuring and testing for systemically important ...
Before taking on the most important latest novelty - the main dish - a short appetizer on 2 items which also to a great extend stress the dangers of systemic risk still present today : 1) Yesterday the central bank of New Zealand urged its most important financial players to speed up their capital adequacy requirements : ...
That were Mario Draghi's concluding remarks speaking before European Parliament in Brussels earlier this week. Again by times a clever effort following his Zeit open letter last week where some more psychological pressure was put onto the German people. Let's see what his main message was in order to know what we can expect next ...
T+3 Spanish bail-out, emergency rescue , credit-line and we are back to square 1 if Spanish yields are an indicator. Apparently markets are not convinced about the credibility of the fire wall currently put into place ; or are awaiting more clarity and reassurances, something the so-called master plan might ...
A liquidity trap is a situation when people are hoarding cash, this out of various reasons. A standard definition would say because people are expecting an adverse event, such as deflation, insufficient aggregate demand or war. The classic debate between Keynesians and Austrians focus on the "why", not the fact that cash hoarding ...
I have just returned from a short stay in Budapest. A magnificent town, reflecting its majestic history in architecture, impressive museums, 19th century open air bathing houses (Széchenyi !!) and probably the world's most beautiful library reading room (4th floor of Ervin Szabo Library !!). So we start with the good news and some ...
Earlier this week, we mentioned the rally on high yield European short term government bonds in anticipation of Wednesday's ECB LTRO auctioning (Long Term Refinancing Operation). Markets had expected something in the range of 300-400 bio EUR. The final result was 489 bio EUR spread over 523 bidders, on average almost 1 bio EUR per ...
After issuing a public tender, the Flemish government has apparently made a decision on their new preferred home banker. ING came out as the winner. And already a lot of fuzz going on that it's a shame a non-Belgian, or non Flemish banker for that matter, has been elected. Dexia has announced it will take the decision into ...
Today Pacal Paepen - director capital markets of London city based Daiwa and known from radio 1 coverage on financial markets - explained in a free tribune why David Cameron acted cavalier seul last Friday at the EU summit. And why there is still such a huge difference between Britannia on the one hand and "Europe" or "the old ...
At the Econopolis Economic Encounters on 28/11, we had the pleasure to have Nouriel Roubini - Dr Doom & Gloom - and Ivan Van De Cloot, Chief Economist of Thinktank Itinera. Both were asked to pinpoint the state of play of the current financial crisis, their short & long term expectations and recommendations on the way forward. Dr ...
...which is sad because we only have ourselves to blame ! And I honestly mean that in every sense of the word : sad and totally misplaced political self-pitty. Keynes is to Economics what Nietzsche has been to philosophy : basically a tragic personality and most of all wildly abused. And with an ironic side-kicker as the icing on ...
Simon Hunt, a consultant on the global economy and specialist on China, revealed his outspoken view on the world economy between now and 2030. His distinguishes two periods: the crisis years 2011-2018 and the new real era starting in 2018. We give you a brief summary and his conclusions for the next years.
De laatste maanden betoogden misnoegden in Brussel, Antwerpen, Leuven en Oostende tegen de inhaligheid van de banken. Het “Occupy Wall Street” protest startte deze zomer in New York en vertakt zich nu wereldwijd. Bonussen, zoals de 600,000€ voor de Dexia- CEO Pierre Mariani in 2010, liggen zwaar onder vuur. Zijn bonussen altijd te ...
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, ...
480,000,000,000 or slightly more or less, doesn't make such a difference, does it. Ancient BEF that is. Or in today's lexicon AKA around EUR 12 billion (12,000,000,000). And that's a mighty big number, certainly in a Belgian framework. I even think that if you take the Global Plan of Dehaene-Van Rompuy I under consideration and ...
Vliegtuigcrash versus beurscrashAls luchtvaart en financiën een zaak gemeen hebben dan is het dat ze niet houden van een crash. Maar terwijl de luchtvaart methodes heeft ontwikkeld om de veiligheid steeds te verhogen, lijkt de financiële wereld van de ene crash in de andere te sukkelen. Welke lessen kunnen we leren van de ...
