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No reason to buy
CHINA FINANCIAL · In Brief · 25 Aug 2015 · 2 responses

There are four possible outcomes over the rest of this week. First, and this is highly unlikely I think, today’s measures could cause markets to stabilize Wednesday and start rising thereafter. This would do wonders for Beijing’s credibility, but I still think there are so many implied options an...

When will it stop?
CHINA FINANCIAL · In Brief · 25 Aug 2015

Tuesday the PBoC lowered lending and deposit rates by 25 bps, to 4.60% and 1.75% respectively, and lowered the required reserve ratio by 50 bps. On Monday the regulators announced that Chinese pension funds would be allowed to hold up to 30% of their assets in stocks. Will these measures matter t...

Week of August 24
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 24 Aug 2015

The decision by the Prosecutor General of the Republic, Rodrigo Janot, to formally accuse Rep. Eduardo Cunha and Senator Fernando Collor will be the main topic of conversation this week in Congress. The Senate will decide if it will confirm Janot’s appointment for another two years; it may also v...

New Expansion of Credit from Public Banks?
BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 24 Aug 2015

The depth of the recession is causing increasing alarm by the government, which has started to react. After reducing the fiscal effort promised for 2015 and coming years, it announced that public banks – Banco do Brasil and Caixa Econômica Federal – will expand the supply of credit to certain sec...

As if Nature Itself is Protesting
ECUADOR · Forecast · 24 Aug 2015

Though it’s still too soon to speak of recession in Ecuador, Q1 GDP performance, the negative oil price outlook for H2, casts doubt upon the official growth estimate of 1.9% for 2015. And economic prospects for 2016 look even worse as the Minister of Finance, Fausto Herrera declared the governmen...

Guatemala: Will Pérez stay in power?
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 23 Aug 2015

With less than 15 days before the September 6th presidential election, the political situation in Guatemala continues to deteriorate.Pressure for President Otto Pérez to resign increased Friday 21st, after the Attorney General, Thelma Aldana, and the International Commission Against Corruption Im...

Monetary policy – developments on tactics and strategy
INDIA · Report · 21 Aug 2015

Executive Summary A dramatic decline in inflation took place, from late 2013 onwards. Headline inflation is now at the inflation target. From 2013 onwards, monetary policy did not see this coming. This feeds into an interesting current debate about shifting the power to set rates from the Governo...

Lava Jato Operation
BRAZIL POLITICS · Report · 21 Aug 2015

The Prosecutor General of the Republic, Rodrigo Janot, formally charged the president of the House of Representatives, Eduardo Cunha (PMDB-RJ), for money laundering and passive corruption. Senator and former president of the Republic, Fernando Collor (PTB-AL) and former federal representative and...

A slight problem with the government debt ratio
HUNGARY · In Brief · 20 Aug 2015

Until now, we have been saying that should the cash deficit target of 2.7% of GDP be achieved, the general government debt ratio would most probably fall moderately, to 76.2% of GDP at year end from 76.9% of GDP at end-2014. In July, we also said that budget implementation was running largely on ...

​Del Pino receives Maduro’s backing
VENEZUELA · In Brief · 19 Aug 2015

Eulogio Del Pino, president of PDVSA, was appointed minister of Petroleum and Mining replacing Asdrúbal Chávez who is running for deputy to the National Assembly in Barinas state. The two highest-ranking positions in oil are back on the shoulders of one person. As president of PDVSA, Del Pino gai...

NEW EXPENDITURE CUT
ECUADOR · In Brief · 19 Aug 2015

Minister of Finance, Fausto Herrera announced that the government will cut $800 million from expenditures in addition to the $1.42 billion announced back in January 2015. Public investment will be reduced by $700 million and current expenditures by $100 million. We already expected a new cut anno...

Politics: Citizenry’s Reality Crisis
MEXICO · Report · 19 Aug 2015

The citizenry’s alienation from politics, lack of confidence in parties, and impression that electoral democracy has done little or nothing to improve wellbeing is nothing new or uniquely Mexican, but there has been a special deepening of that crisis of representativeness over the past year. The ...

Economics: FX Conundrum Ahead of Rate Liftoff
MEXICO · Report · 19 Aug 2015

Mexico’s exchange rate has consistently depreciated since the end of the third quarter of 2014, and began to accelerate its climb by last February in a move that took the 48-hour FIX exchange rate from 15.24/USD in March to 15.94 in July and an average of 16.24 pesos per dollar so far in the mont...

Restructuring Frameworks: Economics and Politics
PANAMA · Report · 18 Aug 2015

After covering an updated economic and fiscal outlook from last month, this report assesses the findings of the IMF mission to Panama and the observations and recommendations of its Executive Board. This report will also delve on three relevant issues: the continuity probe on former officials, th...

MPC: Too Little, Too (Still) Convoluted
TURKEY · Report · 18 Aug 2015

The Monetary Policy Committee left all interest rates unchanged today, broadly in line with the consensus. We also thought this course of action was a very high possibility, but, given the ongoing pressures on the lira (that has been inviting the Bank to some sort of action), we had left the door...