All core markets finished lower in Asia today, with the possible exception of the Nikkei that closed almost unchanged. The Hang Seng closed small down but was Shanghai that lost -0.5% which after the data was actually not that bad! Today we saw Industrial Production, Retail Sales and Investment Spending and it was the talk […]

The Bank of Italy, when it was headed at the time by Mario Draghi, knew Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA hid the loss of almost half a billion dollars using derivatives two years before prosecutors were alerted to the complex transactions, according to documents revealed in a Milan court. Mario Draghi, now president of […]

To assist the European Parliament, the French National Assembly has lifted the immunity of the head of the National Front, Marine Le Pen. The Paris parliamentary administration claims it is simply responding to a request of the judiciary, which under French law, prosecutes crimes. The trumped-up charges against Le Pen stem for publishing on Twitter the […]

The contagion from Catalonia is indeed spreading to Italy. The Democratic Party (PD) led by former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has suffered a severe defeat in Sicily. The Eurosceptic parties have won the election sending yet another warning sign to Brussels that they refuse to accept demand reform.  The Democratic Party has lost the regional elections in […]

  The Nikkei (+1.75%) had the strongest session in Asia today, helped by the continued rally in oil (+3% on Monday) prices and strong earnings. The Nikkei reached new 26 year highs earlier on optimism of growth, mergers and fresh international investment. The index moved stronger from the opening, eventually closing at the highs of […]

The Alternative for Germany party (AfD) in Germany has asked the Federal Government to file a lawsuit against all decisions of European Central Bank (ECB) regarding the purchase of government bonds and corporate bonds as well as derivatives since 2015. They are petitioning to file in the European Court of Justice asserting that the policies of the […]

The Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson’s Independence Party won the most votes in the Iceland election but he saw his party’s support eroded as voters turned to smaller parties in protest. This leaves the country in a position of uncertainty as the election has opened the door to power for the nation’s charismatic and very attractive left-wing leader, […]

GREXIT QUESTION: I just read an article about Grexit and the MoU that expires in the summer of 2018. Let’s assume Greece exits EU and the Euro, what would happen to Greece and it’s people? What hardships would Grexit bring to the Greek people and what could individual Greeks do to prepare themselves for these hardships? […]

China saw a mixed close with Hang Seng’s fall balancing Shanghai’s gain. Talk for China however, focused on reports that China may offer a two tranche 5 and 10yr deals having been absent from the markets for a while. At a time when yields are so low one would expect rather larger deals than is […]

In Japan Shinzo Abe is back in, Czech Republic has taken a step to the right, Catalonian crisis is back in the headline (if it were ever out in the past few weeks), China unemployment hits a low and even an almost political edge from Janet Yellen on Friday evening has given us food for […]