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’Citi’s high carbs diet
It seems like more or less anything can be deemed an asset class these days.
Here’s the latest one from Citigroup analysts: ‘Carbs’. No that’s not McDonalds and Coca Cola, but Canada, Australia,
Honey, I shrunk Emerging Europe
Eurozone banks selling assets in Emerging Europe – to tart up their capital ratios under crisis pressure – is not front-page news at the moment.
Frankly, we think it should be!
It’s a huge test case.
The WTO dividend
You can say what you want about the achievements of the WTO; it sure is nice to be part of the club.
Certainly that is what the Kremlin will be thinking this morning after Russia cleared the final hurdle to joining the 153-nation trade organisation after 17 years of trying.
And the G20 total returns winner is…
Something to take G20 Cannes delegates’ minds off Greece…
How’s this for evidence that the emerging markets growth story is overblown? Of all the G20 countries, the US would have given you the greatest equity returns over the past year,
Eurozone running out of knights
Knights in shining armour that is.
The recently-floated plan for the big emerging markets to send money to Europe via an IMF-led SPV, which could be used alongside the EFSF to buy sovereign debt, is getting the lead balloon treatment.
A Russian solution to EU problems
Here’s an idea for EU summit-goers this weekend: if no progress is made to boost the lending capacity of the EFSF…
… ask Russia for a loan.
Sound mad? It is a little, but hear us out.
Cyprus secured emergency funds from Moscow earlier this month to help it avoid becoming the latest eurozone country to request an international bail-out.
Time to revisit/rethink EM equities?
Investors are making tentative steps back to emerging market equities.
Last week EM equity funds reported positive flows, on aggregate, for the first time in three months — fund flow data from EPFR Global showed a net inflow of $667m for the week to Wednesday October 19.
Gold, puking, and vodka
“Liquidation” seems to be the word here…
Seems clear that the unwinding of gold longs is crashing into equities longs on Friday. Though it’s also worth standing back and looking at commodities leading sovereign credit — such as Russia and crude,
Time to get your Roxxon…
Alternative headline: “Roxxon! You don’t have to put on the red light.”
Reported by Reuters a few minutes ago:
Russia’s top crude producer, Rosneft, and U.S. ExxonMobil signed a strategic agreement on Tuesday to jointly develop oil in the Russian Arctic.
It’s all about Russian Arctic energy
It looks like 2011 really is becoming the year of Russian strategic energy partnership deals.
The latest to join the ever-growing Arctic-focused club is French oil major Total. The firm announced on Wednesday that it will pay $4bn for a stake in Russia’s top independent gas company Novatek,
Russia, the oil opportunist
From Nomura’s Jim McCormick, net exports of oil as a percentage of GDP for a range of emerging markets. No wonder Russia plans to sell that Eurobond on Thursday.
Rзflзctions on BP’s Russian dзal
It’s not just US Congressmen who are concerned about BP’s Global and Arctic Strategic Alliance with Rosneft.
BP’s partner in Russia is also worried.
From the FT:
BP’s landmark deal with Rosneft,
Shadow banks, shadow sovereigns
This is not your usual sovereign contagion post.
We’ve argued once before that Ireland’s failed bondholder bailout has unleashed contagion that does not just threaten the eurozone. Sudden illiquidity could also strike banking systems across the core,
The world backs away from Ireland, Spain, Portugal
There’s something missing from the Russian Finance Ministry’s website.
Via Google Translate:
Ireland and Spain are no longer eligible for investment by Russia’s two sovereign wealth funds — a canny spot by Bloomberg.
Some of our diggers are missing
Well, well, well.
Much to the surprise of no one, Petropavlovsk has slashed its production guidance on Wednesday morning.
And it’s all because of the weather and those missing diggers, according to chairman Peter Hambro.
Masked men at Hациональный резервный банк
This is the scene at London newspaper tycoon Alexander Lebedev’s Национальный резервный банк — a.k.a. the National Reserve Corporation bank — in Moscow on Tuesday:
Pictures courtesy of Google Maps, ura.ru and Ria Novosti.
When capital controls are the only QE antidote
Are capital controls the most unwelcome comeback since the one-piece jumpsuit?
HSBC’s top analysts and economists look into the issue on Tuesday and slightly beg to differ. Not only have they been more common throughout the recent past than most would care to remember,
Gold stock in shock fall
Can this be right? And what would Peta make of it?
The share price of a gold company heading south!
No, your eyes do not deceive you. That really is the share price of a gold company going down.
From Russia in a hurry…
As pointed out to us by some friendly sources — there’s been some interesting moves in the USD/RUB crossrate on Thursday:
And the rumour doing the rounds is that might in someway be tied to this story via Bloomberg:
Stock up on bread now— at least until it rains again
The most well-known wheat crisis to date is the 1972 “Great Grain Robbery,” in which the Soviet Union combated a catastrophic drought that depleted their wheat supply by buying all the available surplus of wheat in the United States. This Soviet spending spree triggered food price hikes worldwide.
BREAKING: Russian-Irish spy ring eyed ‘global gold market’ in…Jersey?
The stuff of cheap thrillers, this one:
That’s from this complaint – part of a fast-developing spy story, allegedly involving various Russians, some of whom are said to have been operating under Irish names.
No need to worry about Belarus gas
Russia and gas disputes go hand-in-hand.
And the latest dispute of this nature is focused on Belarus.
Russia’s Gazprom claims the country owes it $192m in unpaid gas payments. On Monday, therefore,