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Markets 15th November 2011

Barclays: “Italy's net financing needs for 2012 are really short, about €35bn”

Berlusconi’s resignation and Mario Monti’s designation have had an unenthusiastic impact on the European stocks, Barclays notes. “A positive welcome at the beginning has been followed by a general fall of all indexes, including Milan which had increased about 25 early yesterday in the morning. The political change did not help the 5-year bond auction either, because the Italian Treasure issued €3bn at 6.29%, the highest rate since 1997. After…

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Markets 15th November 2011

Barclays: “Italy’s net financing needs for 2012 are really short, about €35bn”

Berlusconi’s resignation and Mario Monti’s designation have had an unenthusiastic impact on the European stocks, Barclays notes. “A positive welcome at the beginning has been followed by a general fall of all indexes, including Milan which had increased about 25 early yesterday in the morning. The political change did not help the 5-year bond auction either, because the Italian Treasure issued €3bn at 6.29%, the highest rate since 1997. After…

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World economy 25th October 2011

Zero interest rate and other myths of the Great Depression's U.S. monetary policy

By Miguel Navascués, in Madrid | H. Clark Johnson, professor at Yale University, identifies in a paper titled Monetary policy and the Great Recession, what he calls the six myths of U.S. monetary policy during the Great Depression. The paper not only explains the cause of the hole we’re in, but also the reasons why zero interest rate does not imply monetary expansion. In the latter case, the reason is simple:…

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World economy 25th October 2011

Zero interest rate and other myths of the Great Depression’s U.S. monetary policy

By Miguel Navascués, in Madrid | H. Clark Johnson, professor at Yale University, identifies in a paper titled Monetary policy and the Great Recession, what he calls the six myths of U.S. monetary policy during the Great Depression. The paper not only explains the cause of the hole we’re in, but also the reasons why zero interest rate does not imply monetary expansion. In the latter case, the reason is simple:…

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Markets 13th September 2011

Two analyst notes, one worrisome story

According to ACF, the total amount of debt purchased by the ECB has doubled since the beginning of August. “The ECB increased purchases of sovereign debt during the last week up to €13.960bn. This is comparing to the previous week’s €13.300bn. The total amount of debt purchased by the ECB has almost doubled in the last five weeks. Since the purchasing program began in May 2010 up until last August…

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Interviews 1st September 2011

Buffett, the socialist

You’ve certainly read by now Warren Buffet’s op-ed column in The New York Times “Stopping to coddle the super-rich”. Mr Buffett talked about raising the tax rate to the “rich” and “super-rich” in an effort to reduce the huge deficit in the US. While in Europe some members of the wealthy elite –like Maurice Lévy, chairman and chief executive of the French advertising firm Publicis or multimillionaire chairman of Ferrari…