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Cluster Family Office Blog

Negative interests and Darwin.


The essence of our economic and market system is efficiency and competitiveness driven by profit. It seems a somewhat convoluted phrase, but it assumes that the System is based on concepts as logical and simple as the fact that all the agents that make up the Market and the global Economy want to make money. For this obvious - and at the same time necessary - reason, we try to progress in our jobs, either as employees or as entrepreneurs. We all want to achieve greater well-being, and to do so, we need to progress and our work must be not only well done, but better done than that of our competitors. This is the only way to improve our salary or our company profits, and thus also our ability to enjoy that money, i.e. our present and future well-being.
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Deutsche Bank: The Big Short.

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Edward Misrahi, manager of Ronit Capital, ex-partner at Goldman Sachs and Eton Park, recently stated in an interview with Businessinsider.com that his number 1 choice to hedge a portfolio against a generalised fall in the markets would be Deutsche Bank shares. He warns that any European bank has a very uncertain outlook, whether it is Portuguese, Italian or British, affected by Brexit. But his preferred insurance policy in the event of a tail-risk would be to sell the shares of this German bank, for which he predicts a forthcoming nationalisation as the only way out to avoid a general banking collapse. (more…)

The secret project of the Franco-German Superstate.

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The foreign ministers of France (Jean-Marc Ayrault) and Germany (Frank-Walter Steinmeier) have bilaterally agreed on a series of proposals that radically contradict the model of the European Union that Euro-bureaucrats have been selling us for decades. The million-dollar question is to whom they are proposing this new Europe, and whether this declaration of intent is just that or rather a full-blown announcement of the new path that the hard core of European countries, starting with the Franco-German axis and adding Benelux and Italy (more for its founding history than its current economic state, obviously), will embark on. (more…)

If Bremain had won.

BremainThe analyst John Mauldin, The EU is facing profound changes after the result of the British referendum. It remains to be seen whether the exit finally takes place that the people have demanded of their leaders, since politics in general, and the EU in particular, are specialists in disregarding the will of the people even if there has been a transparent and official vote count. It is not for nothing that the Euroschizophrenia seems endemic for as long as the Old Continent has existed. In any case, even if the UK did not end up leaving the EU, the problems that Brussels would face are and would continue to be enormous. So let us number some of the burning issues that Mauldin believes the EU would still have on its hands even if Bremain had won: (more…)

Only Democracy wins.

ukEl Brexit ha venido y nadie sabe comoha sido. Los burócratas de uno y otro lado del Canal de la Mancha lo tenían todo controlado menos las urnas. Lo malo es que un «loco» llamado Cameron decidió volver a apostar todo al negro, al igual que hizo con el referéndum escocés, solo que esta vez salió el rojo. Y claro, cuando un dirigente gana un referéndum, se convierte en el héroe de la Democracia a ojos de todo el mundo. Pero cuando lo pierde -y el resultado de la votación perjudica a muchos, como a priori parece ser el caso del Brexit- se convierte en un villano que ha puesto a los demás en un riesgo tan innecesario como temerario por su ego ludópata. En ese caso la Democracia pasa a un segundo plano y nadie se acuerda de que ese resultado es la voluntad de la mayoría del pueblo, ni de que esa es la esencia de nuestro Sistema político.

Aunque a muchos se les difumine la frontera, los intereses económicos del Sistema Finananciero no deberían estar por encima del Sistema Político, o sea de las decisiones democráticas, aunque éstas sean desafortunadas o temerarias. Europa no debería caer en la tentación de gobernar la UE bajo las directrices económicas sino políticas, democráticamente determinadas. Pero la realidad es que tenemos una UE cuyo presidente no es fruto de un proceso electoral como el de por ejemplo los EE.UU. Y unos lobbys poderosísimos (Troika) que ejercen presiones insoportables y que de facto gobiernan más que el presidente no electo (Juncker). (more…)

It is urgent to wait... and to know what to expect.

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In today's financial and economic times, as an old friend often says, it is urgent to wait. This is not a time for long-term investment ventures that are susceptible to macroeconomic changes or geopolitical conflicts, which are more uncertain than ever. The steps that investors must take in such a muddy environment must be short, stable and prudent. It is more true than ever that the concept of crisis is synonymous with opportunity, but this does not mean that we should not take ambitious and adventurous steps when a mine-ridden swamp surrounds us. (more…)

The global debt distortion.

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Diversos analistas de medios como por ejemplo el WSJ o BusinessInsider, revelan que está ocurriendo algo inusual en los tipos de interés norteamericanos, aunque la verdad sea dicha, motivos para que el Sistema financiero se comporte de modo extraño y jamás visto no faltan, desde luego. Para ponernos en situación, cabe recordar que cuando una economía -como le está sucediendo ahora mismo a la norteamericana- consigue unas cifras próximas al pleno empleo y una inflación cercana al codiciado 2%, su curva de tipos se acentúa. Esa es una consecuencia lógica de la mejora de las perspectivas económicas, ya que en un escenario donde empiezan a surgir cantidad de buenas oportunidades de negocio, es normal que los inversores exijan mayor rendimiento a cambio de bloquear su dinero a largo plazo, y menor renta a vencimientos cortos. La consecuencia gráfica es una mayor pendiente en la curva de tipos de esa moneda, como se ha visto en infinidad de ocasiones a lo largo de la historia. (more…)

Bill Gross, a slap in the face of realism.

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Bill Gross, former star manager of PIMCO and now of JANUS, is the voice of experience in the debt markets. It is true that his published views have not always been right, but perhaps his unpublished reflections have been mostly right. In fact, for us, Gross has been a great communicator of self-interested views. That is to say that at any given moment it has suited him that the markets/investors/clients have reacted to his published opinions in a certain way. Let us not forget that Gross is a veteran and influential voice like few others. (more…)

China and the Pearl River Delta (PRD).

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The Pearl River Delta, also known by its acronym PRD, is a powerful economic zone in southern China. Its main cities are 11: nine of them belong to Guangdong province and account for 54% of its entire population (which is 106 million); and the other two cities are Macau and Hong Kong, which, although not technically part of the Mainland, are also the economic powerhouse of the PRD and provide the area with its specific political and administrative status. In total this zone accounts for no less than 26.2% of China's exports, 9.1% of GDP and «only» 4.2% of the population.

This area is approximately 40,000 km2 in size, about the size of Switzerland, but with a population of about 60 million, the size of the whole of the United Kingdom. The area will soon become a fully-fledged urban mega-metropolitan area, with economic growth exceeding 8% per year in cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen. A true economic hub for China, whose planned market economy clearly goes far beyond the Yangtze River Delta hub (Shanghai) or the Tianjin area hub (Beijing). (more…)

Central banks and the rise of extremism.

DanielleblueOs recomendamos una lectura para el fin de semana. Se trata del artículo que encontraréis enlazado al pie de este post, escrito por Danielle DiMartino Booth, analista económica especializada en bancos centrales. Danielle Booth supo prever hace una década la catástrofe que supuso la burbuja inmobiliaria y el abuso de crédito hipotecario ejercido por los bancos norteamericanos. Recordemos que la llamada «crisis subprime» fue el fenómeno que originó el colapso del Sistema Financiero, que hoy en día se mantiene aún en pie sólo gracias a (o por culpa de) la respiración artificial proporcionada por los bancos centrales, a costa del crecimiento y la riqueza de las próximas generaciones.

Antes de que tachéis a esta analista de exagerada y catastrofista, os queremos recordar que Danielle fue la mano derecha del ex-Presidente de la FED de Dallas Richard Fisher durante los 10 años de su mandato. Fisher (y su mano derecha Danielle) se enfrentaron a Bernanke cuando éste inició la fabricación masiva de dinero/deuda. Y en 2013 Fisher y Booth también se mostraron firmemente en desacuerdo por la puesta en marcha de la tercera ronda de Quantitative Easing, por considerarlo ya «one step too far».

Si queréis ponderar un poco más el análisis de Danielle, podéis leer también lo que decían de ella en ZeroHedge el pasado año: «Another FED Insider Quits, Tells The Truth«. Por nuestra parte tan solo recordar las advertencias que hemos reiterado desde el 2013 en artículos como «La Era de los Bancos Centrales«.

Ya sabemos que algunos de vosotros consideráis que nuestros artículos son generalmente demasiado pesimistas. Pero quizá, después de leer a Danielle, los nuestros os resulten incluso un tanto «happy flowers» 😉 En cualquier caso, os deseamos un feliz fin de semana y que este bofetón de crudo realismo titulado «Central Banks and the rise of extremism» no os lo estropee:

«Central Banks and the rise of extremism.»