Posts tagged 'debt sustainability'

When scientists become hedge fund managers

Lisa joined FT Alphaville in September 2011 after a tour of duty through the guts of the financial industry, having worked as an analyst at a bank and for a financial data company.

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| Jun 25 2012 11:12 | Comment |

There are many gems in the annual report of the Bank of International Settlements that came out on Sunday. One of the most intriguing is a trail which leads to an actual estimate of the cost to society of scientists becoming hedge fund managers.

The trail starts at a section about debt sustainability across a number of countries. It notes that elevated levels of debt got us into this crisis and the situation still hasn’t improved for many countries. In fact, for some countries, the debt burden of the private sector has gotten even worse. Check out the last row of these charts on debt service ratios (looking at the red lines): Read more

There are many ways to count Chinese debt

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Aug 11 2011 12:56 | Comment |

Let us count them… or at least, begin to.

The People’s Bank of China in February acknowledged that official credit financing figures weren’t adequately capturing non-bank lending, so they began to publish broader figures under the moniker “total social financing” (aka “society-wide financing”). Under this measure, Chinese financing levels for 2011 would be about Rmb14,000bn – similar to the previous two, stimulus-infused, years – despite the various efforts at credit tightening this year. Read more

Greek and Irish interest rate stress tests

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Apr 05 2011 10:01 | Comment |

If this week’s mooted 25bps hike in ECB interest rates is the beginning of a trend, there’s already plenty of evidence it will damage private debt sustainability in the periphery.

More on all that public debt, this time. Read more

The corroding core

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Dec 14 2010 14:43 | Comment |

Belgium has six months. The rest of the eurozone core has a problem.

Standard & Poor’s didn’t shift the Belgian sovereign’s AA+ rating from a stable to a negative outlook on Tuesday for the usual reasons you might expect with, say, Spain or Ireland. There, contingent banking liabilities loom large, for instance. Read more