Posts tagged 'MENA'

Bursting the MENA credit bubble

| Nov 11 2011 10:55 | Comment |

And now for something completely different..

Middle Eastern credit spreads could soon blow up amid an outbreak of political strife with potentially global consequences. Read more

On powerpoint and political risk

| Jun 14 2011 19:40 | Comment |

Otto van Bismarck, who knew a bit about political risk, said the thing about revolutions was to intuit God’s movements in history and seize the hem of his garment as he sweeps by.

Easier said than done, of course. Read more

And now Goldman says the commodities correction is over [updated]

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| May 24 2011 09:50 | Comment |

Having been proven right about their prediction of a rather substantial correction in commodities  earlier this month, Goldman Sachs is now out with a new view.

A bullish view. Read more

Bahrain bank flight, quantified

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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| May 04 2011 09:32 | Comment |

Q. What happens when your prized offshore banking system is occupied by Saudi Arabia?

A. This: Read more

Meanwhile, in Bahrain…

| Mar 15 2011 21:49 | Comment |

Call it the first response to the Abdullah-Brehznev doctrine.

The FT reports Tuesday that Bahrain has declared a state of emergency and asked the military to reassert its control over the capital, Manama, as clashes between Shia and Sunni groups spread across the country. Read more

Day of raging tranquility

Cardiff writes mostly about US macroeconomic issues, with daily excursions into other topics about which he claim no expertise. Before Alphaville, Cardiff spent a little more than two years as a reporter at Dow Jones Financial News covering investment banking, asset management, and private equity. Along the way he has written freelance pieces on a variety of other topics from behavioural psychology to Muay Thai, the latter also being a personal interest that involves frequently getting kicked in the shins (and torso, and head).

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| Mar 11 2011 20:49 | Comment |

After Thursday’s reports that Saudi Arabian security forces had shot at protesters in the country’s eastern region, there was a good chance the long-anticipated Day of Rage would be one of today’s big market stories.

Instead the earthquake in Japan has rightly been the focal point, while the Day of Rage fizzled. The Washington Post reported earlier that all was quiet even in Qatif, the site of yesterday’s shootings. Read more

QE as ‘shock therapy’

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Mar 08 2011 17:06 | Comment |

Most of the world’s focus is on Libya-related contagion spreading into other Middle Eastern countries and kingdoms.

But, suggests a report from Standard & Poor’s research arm on Tuesday, it may be time to start looking a little further afield. Read more

The big four ‘known unknowns’ for oil

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Mar 07 2011 09:30 | Comment |

Citi analysts raised their Brent oil estimate to $105 and $100 for 2011 and 2012 respectively, from $90/barrel, on Monday.

That’s as Brent crude sits tight around the $115 per barrel mark, with WTI not far behind at $105 per barrel. Read more

The “autocracy risk premia” of frontier market bonds

Cardiff writes mostly about US macroeconomic issues, with daily excursions into other topics about which he claim no expertise. Before Alphaville, Cardiff spent a little more than two years as a reporter at Dow Jones Financial News covering investment banking, asset management, and private equity. Along the way he has written freelance pieces on a variety of other topics from behavioural psychology to Muay Thai, the latter also being a personal interest that involves frequently getting kicked in the shins (and torso, and head).

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| Mar 02 2011 18:35 | Comment |

In responding to the direct action of protestors, investors (indirectly) may never before have attached so much weight to democratic credentials, and we suspect there have been few such moments in history when a small number of institutional characteristics can explain so much variation in bond prices.

That’s in a new paper by frontier market investment shop Exotix (full paper in the usual place; hat tip Sid Verma at FT Tilt), which has applied “a model-based approach that focuses only on variables directly related to the underpinnings of unrest” and found that “democratic credentials have been a key determinant of relative frontier bond performance so far in 2011.” Read more