With almost every investor out there claiming deep commitment to the environmental, social and governance (ESG) cause, one issue on which there is surprisingly little debate is that of cryptocurrencies.
Investor enthusiasm for these two new buzzwords in the investing world is high, but few people are ready to admit that they are mutually exclusive: you cannot claim to focus on ESG and own Bitcoin at the same time.
Continue readingEven those who still do not believe that climate change is a serious threat to our way of living will need to pay attention: it could turn out to be the next Black Swan for financial markets.
Continue readingIf Brexit does go ahead (and probably even if it does not), the European Union is ready to chip away at Britain’s dominance in the financial sector. At least, that’s what a recent speech by François Villeroy de Galhau, the governor of the Bank of France, suggests.
The news that the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is suing European banks in London for manipulating Libor should worry central bankers everywhere.
It’s all hush-hush, with details coming from reports in newspapers, rather than made public officially. The Financial Times reported that the FDIC is suing Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, Rabobank and UBS, as well as the British Bankers’ Association, accusing them of fraudulent misrepresentation.
Lloyds said it doesn’t believe the claim has any merit, while the others did not comment, according to the report.
Do you want to know how the next financial crisis will arrive, and how it could be prevented? In that case, read “The Money Formula“, a book by Paul Wilmott and David Orrell published earlier this year.
It shows you, with mathematical precision, what the financial world did not learn from the previous crisis. It also shows why it is so difficult for the rest of the world to catch them out.
If you’re like me, you’ve certainly wondered why economic growth has been so sluggish after the worst post-war recession — the Great Recession, or Great Financial Crisis as some have callednthe 2007-2009 crisis. Normally, the economy should have surged, after such a deep slump.
Instead, we’re proud of economic growth figures around 2% in Britain and the US and cheer when the eurozone posts a meager GDP advance of above 1% almost a decade after the crisis.
It’s unclear when it all started, but it has reached the point where it would make the biggest banker of all times, John Pierpont Morgan, turn in his grave.
Another trick to keep UK house prices rising is taking center stage: the extra-large mortgage. It’s the mortgage lasting half a lifetime, or more, which allows you to buy a home even if, under normal circumstances, you would not afford it.
The news that Wells Fargo, the US bank that is the world’s biggest lender by market value, targets millennials with its mortgage loans is seen as a sign that we’ve finally gotten over the crisis that nearly brought down the world economy in 2007-2009.
The Financial Times reported that the head of the bank’s home finance business said he was keen to lend more to first-time buyers, who, the paper said, have so far “put off settling down.”
But what is good for America is not necessarily good for the world. While in the US there has been some deleveraging and restructuring that allows the housing market to re-start from a cleaner basis, it is not the case in the rest of the world.
By Mirela Roman
Central bankers have been striving to bring inflation down for a long time. But ironically, they took a U-turn after the financial crisis and are now trying to heal the wounds via negative or near zero lower-bound rates, “unorthodox” stimulus such as quantitative easing or various forward guidance and communication techniques.
As words almost became monetary policy tools, prices continue to stay stubbornly low or on a downward path. But there is one thing that bucks the trend, and its swings are even more sensitive to the way central banks talk than those of inflation.