Ralph Weidenmann, Partner

Posts of July, 2012

Eurozone: Shared supervision of banks

Many important decisions were made by the EU member nations’ top officials at the summit meeting in late June. New: banks can be refinanced directly instead of via the government debt detour. Even though the ECB is usually left out in crisis management, it did make a few important decisions. Recently, for instance, the conditions that make securities eligible as  >>

July 27th, 2012 | POLITICS AND BUSINESS

Returns: junk is foxy – or is it?

Swiss National Bank wins the EU summit. Watch out for rating traps in corporate bonds. Junk bonds can be fun, too. Operation Twist sounds more like a secret mission in an espionage movie than like a monetary policy measure by the Fed, the US central bank. It is a bond swap that extends maturities and reduces rates at the long  >>

July 27th, 2012 | CURRENCIES AND INTEREST RATES

Recovery: Prices are not one-way streets

Strange understanding of shareholder value at Adecco. Low valuations of financials endanger their future independence. The gloomier economic outlook is also affecting oil prices. Since early May, the price of a barrel of Brent oil has corrected from 120 to 93 US dollars. The development of commodity prices is an excellent seismograph for the health status of the global economy.  >>

July 27th, 2012 | FINANCIAL MARKETS