by Jürgen

The motto of this month is not White Knight, aggresive takeover, green jobs, or bailout. Based on the planned April mergers, I would vote for Neighbour Binding: Swedish and Danish postal services are swapping shares, Spanish Mapfre goes for a big chunck in the Portugese market, Italian Enel hunts for Spanish Endesa, or US entertainment diverts into Canadian online games.

Who talked about protectionism?

by Gregory

Here we go again with the not-so-holy Trinity that was already seen in this previous post. But this time around, there is no doubt about where our three protagonists lie. General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner is leaving the firm at the request of the Obama administration: he is the villain. Chrysler Robert Nardelli hasn’t [...]

by James

Includes: Banking sector stability, Political corporate intervention, Telenor-Alfa, Norilsk Nickel, Ukraine Gas, Market Rally Global factors have been driving equities markets for several weeks now. Russia gained stability from stabilising commodities prices, especially oil, and from the surge in hope that the US Treasury would deliver a solid financial sector rescue package. But, local developments [...]

by James

Exciting times continue, world equities put in a strong performance last Monday, rising on the already thoroughly leaked Treasury plan to provide support to the financial sector. There are reasons a plenty to debate the logic of this rally, but markets spent the rest of the week consolidating that price move. By Friday’s close, the [...]

by Jürgen

Many governments have their support plan set up. G20 is meeting soon. And overall panic in the world lowered from red to soft orange. Governments jump on this intermediate pace to do some PR in preparation of elections, for regular image building or, here and there, for action. This raises the question what the influence is, will, or could be on former national industries that still do have particular ties with governments due to their ‘vital’ importance. Banking is in the news 24/7. Time for a tendency report on the bidirectional impact of the other big one: Utilities.

by Dino

 As we pick up the pieces after the implosion of financial markets in 2008, it is important to understand what went wrong. Among the defendants are financial derivatives – especially credit default swaps, asset backed securities and other securitized financial products, and more broadly financial engineering and financial innovation. Nobel economist Paul Krugman calls them [...]

by James

The G20 event in London next week is aims to tackle the regulatory aspects of the global crisis, seeking to speed it’s solution and prevent a reoccurence. Less relevantly it will also target offshore banking and hedge funds, neither of which show any sign of implication in the economic problems we are experiencing. Markets have [...]

by James

On economic matters, is a national leader a market commentator or a strategist? It was clear from the outset that Obama would disappoint some factions in his first 100 days, so broad were the expectations place on him. In the midst of an economic crisis, it is a catastrophe that he has disappointed so many [...]