Category Archive: Uncategorized
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RGE’s David Nowakowski on CNBC: ECB Must Implement Creative Policy
Today, David Nowakowski, RGE Director of Fixed Income and Credit Strategy, told CNBC that, given the current low policy rates in the eurozone, a rate cut by the ECB does not make a difference, noting that although the repo rate is at 75 bps, the interbank rates are much lower after LTROs earlier in 2012, [...]
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Adoboli Verdict: Harsh or Lenient?
I have no idea if 7 years in prison and a ruined reputation is too harsh or too lenient. He was a bad boy and strict punishment is undoubtedly deserved. It’s true that if he went into a bank and stole $2.3 million, rather than lost $2.3bn in trading, he’d get a much stiffer sentence, [...]
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Misconstruing Germany Will Prove to Be Death of the Euro
When I go from one European capital to another, talking to officials and senior politicians about the future of the euro, Germany feels less like another country than a different planet. In Madrid and Dublin, a euro-area banking union — the prerequisite for bailing out banks directly — is discussed as if it were a foregone conclusion. [...]
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QE3 Will Work if it Shifts Expectations That the Fed Will Tolerate More Inflation
Beyond the straightforward mechanics of QE3 (i.e., the Treasury and MBS purchases), the Fed’s impact on expectations is key. The guidance indicated that support would remain in place until the economy is well in their clear. By aggressively pushing on bond yields, and more importantly, promising to maintain that effort, Bernanke and Co. definitely had [...]
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For LatAm, QE3 Impact on Financial Risk Is Key
The Fed’s QE3 will have varying effects by country in LatAm; however, there are a few broad strokes that color the region. QE3 comes at a moment when growth is weak across the board and policy action is widely needed. What QE3 signifies for LatAm, in this context, is not only related to the added [...]
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QE3: Buoying the GCC
The Economonitor’s QE3 week is perfect timing as we’ve been thinking a lot about the effects of the latest bouts of global monetary stimulus on the Middle East and North Africa – as summarized in part of our omnibus MENA quarterly presentation. We argue there that even though EMs and to a lesser extent frontier [...]
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Worst of the Eurozone Crisis Is Not Over Yet
All is relatively quiet in the eurozone these days – or at least that is what you might think, speaking to portfolio managers over the past few months. German chancellor Angela Merkel has visited Greece, Ireland has re-entered the bond markets and the ECB’s balance sheet is in play for Spain and Italy, so what [...]
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The Romney Recovery of 2003-06
One of the most popular complaints of Barack Obama’s stewardship of the economy centers on the argument that bad government policies are responsible for the weak recovery we’ve had since the financial crisis. Many Romney supporters—including John Taylor, who is also one of Romney’s economic advisers—have pointed out that previous episodes of large contractions in [...]
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How Would Portugal Have Fared in the Past Decade Under the Debt Rule?
Portugal was the second country (after Greece) to ratify the fiscal compact treaty (together with the ESM). The fiscal compact will be implemented under the auspices of the European Court of Justice which will monitor the national rule’s compliance with the treaty. Some key elements of the fiscal treaty are effectively already in force since [...]
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Food Inflation in India—The Government Has to Act and Not Hope
Inflation, especially food inflation, in India remains essentially a government monopoly. Surprised? What I mean is that high food inflation is the cause of faulty government policies that has a distortionary effect on prices. Given the elevated level of food prices in urban India, the common perception is that urban inflation is higher than rural [...]

















