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Category: Actualidad

Abróchense los cinturones de seguridad…

Es obvio que la irrupción de Trump en el escenario mundial cambia las reglas de juego en las que bancos centrales y euroburócratas nos habían aletargado. Y su acceso a la presidencia coincide en el tiempo con otros puntos de inflexión que por sí sólos ya merecerían centrar nuestra atención como inversores. Así, Trump potencia y acelera procesos como el Brexit, la subida de tipos del USD y la consiguiente venta de deuda soberana norteamericana, con las consecuencias que ello implica para las reservas monetarias de las mayores potencias mundiales.

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Y si por si fuera poco, detrás de Trump está Steve Bannon, que deja la vehemencia de Trump a la altura del betún. El cargo creado ad hoc para Bannon, Estratega en Jefe, le confiere un carácter de hombre fuerte, fortísimo en el entorno del Presidente. No en balde inicialmente debía ser nombrado Chief of Staff, el cargo más influyente de la Casa Blanca, pero por presiones del partido republicano se acabó descartando Bannon en favor de Priebus.

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Pues bien, dicho Steve Bannon, contradiciendo la versión oficial del Vice-Presidente Pence, comentó con el embajador alemán en Washington la necesidad de potenciar la relación bilateral Alemania-USA obviando la interlocución europea. Fuentes de Reuters filtraron el contenido de estas conversaciones y aseguran que Bannon y el embajador alemán hablaron de la UE como una construcción fallida y con muy poco futuro. Huelga decir que esta visión coincide totalmente con la del Ministro de Finanzas alemán, Wolfgang Schauble.

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Por otra parte, Trump y Bannon potenciarán el Brexit hasta puntos impensables hasta hoy. Y aprovechando la excelente relación del Presidente norteamericano con la familia Real británica, se está planteando incluso la posibilidad de que los USA se unan a la Commonwealth. Un espaldarazo jamás visto a esta unión de Estados que en su mayoría formaron parte del Imperio Británico en el pasado. Y por supuesto, una puntilla para la moribunda UE, que está llevando la pre-negociación del Brexit al terreno de la amenaza y la hostilidad, quizá de manera poco estratégica.

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Y en medio de este panorama, las subidas de tipos usd en puertas ya están generando ventas masivas de Treasuries por parte de bancos centrales que hasta hoy habían acumulado cantidades ingentes de ellos. Un cambio de escenario radical respecto a la última década. Y de consecuencias imprevisibles, sobre todo si tenemos en cuenta que uno de los mayores tenedores de deuda soberana norteamericana es el China. Sí, el mismo gigante (entre otros muchos) al que Trump pretende declarar una guerra comercial más que temeraria. Sobre todo pensando en que los chinos tienen el poder de abrir o cerrar el grifo de sus masivas reservas de Treasuries según las necesidades estratégicas de tipos de cambio USD/RMB o las amenazas políticas que a buen seguro veremos en los próximos meses.

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Además, en Mayo puede detonarse otra bomba política nuclear y Le Pen puede llegar al poder. Una probabilidad mucho mayor de la que parecen descontar los mercados más visibles (bolsa y bonos), al menos así lo vaticinan hoy mismo desde Bloomberg: «If tail risks are to be believed, the risk of Frexit is larger than what is currently assumed«. Y sin olvidar que Alemania también va a tener en los próximos meses elecciones imprevisibles. Abróchense los cinturones y tomen medidas de seguridad. Especialmente aquellos inversores que creen que la Eurozona seguirá siendo la Eurozona, y los que confían que los euros de su cuenta corriente seguirán teniendo el mismo valor que los de los alemanes.

 

 

The beginning of the end of the debt bubble... and its consequences.

It seems that Trump's victory, coinciding in time with the start of rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve, has - at last - given the starting signal for the bursting of the debt bubble we have experienced over the last decade - and this is paradoxical, given that Trump has always been the king of debt with his real estate and business empire - However, this bursting is only visible where the economy seems to be emerging from the hole of deflation and anaemic growth, namely in the US.What happens is that when the Treasury sneezes, long-term debt in Europe and Japan gets pneumonia. And that, the unwary fixed income investors of the last few years should have been well aware of.

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So we are already seeing how portfolios of pure fixed income (bonds) that had been promised so happily with the infinite debt rally served up on a plate by the central banks, are beginning to incur losses that surprise their long-suffering and poorly advised owners. The losses they are going to suffer are and will be directly proportional to the greed for yield they have sought, since the vast majority of advisors have preferred to increase maturities rather than reduce the rating of issuers. In other words, in order to obtain a meagre 2% yield, they have preferred to buy long-term bonds from issuers with investment grade ratings rather than to look at shorter-term issuers that are more solvent but less well regarded by the rating agencies (yes, they have been able to buy bonds with a higher rating than those with a lower rating), those same prostitutes who, obeying the voices of their political-financial masters, led us to collapse in 2007).

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The consequence of buying debt durations at such an exorbitant price, now that the bubble is starting to lose air, is none other than the devaluation in the price of that debt. This buying frenzy has reached such an extreme that the holder of Belgian government bonds with a maturity of 100 years (yes, yes, a century) is today losing a whopping -30%! And this with a black-leg (AA) rating and only a sneeze from the US Treasury Bond, as the US 10-year bond is still only at 2.5% interest, and therefore still has a long way to go before it normalises at levels of 4-5%. A death trap if ever there was one, where the poor deceived investor will not live long enough to recover this blow to his wealth. It should also be remembered that we are talking about fixed income (sic), i.e. investments that are invested in this type of asset because their owners do not want/cannot/should not suffer huge losses without putting their physical and mental well-being at risk. Moreover, this death trap has become gigantic in the last 10 years, since it has doubled to 45 trillion (45 Tr) dollars! You can read this article of Gurusblog in which they talk about this disaster announced by few.

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No one can say that we have not been warning about fixed income risk in recent years. Warnings to which many other advisors in the sector are now beginning to add their voices. SocGen: «The decade-long party in the debt markets is over (...) Prepare for a serious hangover». S&P: «Trump's unanticipated rise has let some of the air out of the bond market bubble». Bank of America Merrill Lynch: «It's a «stampede» out of bond funds», etc, etc... Needless to say that the fall in bond prices will force many to sell their portfolios, exacerbating the falls, which are no longer bleeding thanks to Draghi and company continuing to maintain a demand that is as astronomical as it is unrealistic.

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Expectations of an economic revival in the US brought about by President-elect Donald Trump's idiosyncrasies are fuelling and accelerating economic growth and inflation expectations. For example wages have clearly rebounded in the US labour market. For all these reasons, the fall in debt prices around the world, dragged down by the price of the Treasury, seems to have only just begun. And the worrying thing about this new scenario is how far the seams of hyper-indebted countries with public deficits (i.e. with growing debt) such as Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece... will hold up before winter arrives...

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Against this backdrop, the trillion-dollar question is where to find income when the bond market bursts its bubble? There are some, but certainly far from the traditional fixed income fund circuit, as they have to be sought through alternative strategies that neither commercial nor private banks usually have in their sales catalogues. And of course, no one should confuse dividend stocks with fixed income, as let us not forget that stocks listed in developed markets are not cheap enough to take on such risk.

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But let no one get depressed, for it would be a far worse scenario for everyone if the debt bubble burst were to be aborted. For that would signal the failure of the economic recovery and the now desperate pumping of central banks to postpone an inevitable collapse. In other words, we should pray that the debt bubble bursts to reasonable levels even if it brings significant losses to poor, ill-advised savers/investors.

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Oh, by the way, Merry Christmas!

Steinmeier se enfrentará a Merkel en Febrero: Auf Wiedersehen EU

Merkel no ha tenido más remedio que aceptar a Steinmeier como inminente Presidente alemán. La noticia tiene un calado político aún subestimado por muchos. No en balde Frank-Walter Steinmeier es el Ministro de Exteriores que firmó el documento de 9 páginas con su homólogo francés, en el que se sentaban las bases de lo que será el nuevo Superestado Franco-Alemán. Cabe recordar que en dicho documento oficial ya se rompían lo que hasta hace poco eran verdaderos dogmas en el seno de la UE, con frases como: We need to recognise that member states differ in their levels of ambition member state when it comes to the project of European integration”. O la inequívoca y demoledora frase en la que sentencia la ruptura de la política monetaria: The current architecture of the euro is not sufficiently resilient to external shocks or internal imbalances»…»Surplus and deficit countries will have to move, as a one-sided alignment is politically unfeasible”. También el representante de la UE para negociar el Brexit (y ex-primer ministro belga) Guy Verhofstadt, definió 6 puntos sobre los que se debe basar el nuevo Super-Estado Franco-Alemán. A destacar el punto número 4, que dice ni más ni menos: «Set up a central Brussels Treasury», lógicamente independiente del BCE de Frankfurt.  Ahí es nada.

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Volviendo a Steinmeier, el Ministro de Exteriores que firmó un documento tan inequívocamente «franco-alemán» con su homólogo galo, como decíamos será el nuevo Presidente en contraposición de la canciller europeísta Merkel a partir del 12 de Febrero (dentro de apenas 3 meses). Además, Steinmeier se ha declarado totalmente contrario a la idiosincrasia de Trump, que prefiere hablar con Farage antes que con May, por lo que el cóctel explosivo está servido.

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A partir de aquí, los posicionamientos políticos internacionales que parecían monolíticos, se han comenzado a parecer más al caos que se apodera de un hormiguero después de pisotearlo: Francia y Alemania aceleran su organización militar (técnicamente aún bajo una cierta supervisión de Bruselas) ante el previsible adelgazamiento de la estructura de la OTAN. Bulgaria elige a un ex-militar como presidente, que se declara inequívocamente tan cercano a Putin como lejano a Bruselas. Porque esta UE ya no seduce ni a los del Norte ni a los del Este, y pareciera que sólo los del Sur seguimos bajo la anestesia suministrada por los euroburócratas y la liquidez infinita del BCE. Gurús del mundo de la inversión recomiendan ya invertir en el nuevo escenario que se abre ante Putin (Steinmeier también está más próximo a Putin que Merkel). Y ojo, porque algunos hedge funds hablan ya abiertamente de sus apuestas en favor de una ruptura de la UE.

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Por el momento, los precios de los bonos se han comenzado a desinflar, a pesar de que los compresores del BCE siguen insuflando en el Sistema dinero y solvencia a destajo para evitar el fin de su coma inducido. Mientras tanto, los inversores que no preparen sus activos y patrimonios para el escenario de ruptura de la unión monetaria, quedarán a merced del invierno que venimos anunciando desde hace mucho tiempo. Alemania desde luego ya se está preparando para ese nuevo escenario al elegir un Presidente como Steinmeier y a un selecto grupo de países económicamente compatibles como compañeros de viaje en los nuevos Estados Unidos de Europa. Auf Wiedersehen EU.

Democracy Changed the World: More America and less Europe.

In just a few months the world, or at least the Western world, has turned 180 degrees. And it has not been caused by any particular war or cataclysm, but rather by the result of two votes. That is the way it is, whether we like the decisions taken or not, Democracy has changed the world. Indeed, who else would be best placed to change the course of the world's most influential countries? Both votes have set the stage for what will be a turnaround as dizzying as it is unmistakable: More America and less Europe.

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The first vote was held on 23 June, in which 17,410,742 The British decided to leave the EU, thus breaking all the schemes that up to that moment the Eurobureaucrats still defended tooth and nail, i.e. the Troika and the single currency. Even though it proved to be economically and politically unviable, the slogan of the European leaders was, until that very moment, more Europe, more Union and less sovereignty for the member states. Let's say that Brexit - against the realisation of which the defenders of an impossible EU are still fighting - opened the eyes of many leaders and also the ban on officially saying and planning such things as these o these, without being branded as pariahs or losing their positions. Because regardless of the timing and the traumas of Brexit, the break-up of the EU into at least two sub-unions of states is not only an officially recognised prospect, it is the only viable one. You can read more in «Europe's USA is taking shape«.

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The second vote took place across the pond the day before yesterday. The reality of the ballot box was, once again, stubborn. Y 59,692,974 of people have voted for Donald Trump despite fierce opposition from virtually the rest of the world. The president-elect is still a melon to be opened, as his racism, homophobia, sexism and other Hitlerian leanings during the campaign may well be moderated to mere vehemence and political heterodoxy during his term in office. The reason is simple: from the very moment he was elected he no longer needs to ask for anyone's vote. And this will lead him to show the real Trump president, which time will tell if he is worse or better than the Trump candidate shown in the campaign. His uncertain policies have even Republicans themselves on edge. And his personal relationships with other presidents such as Enrique Peña, Merkel, May, Putin or Xi Jinping have the whole world on edge. But his nationalist, protectionist and authoritarian idiosyncrasies go in the unmistakable direction of the «More America» or «Make America Great Again» concept. And that is a radical departure from the openness/modernism/globalism of the Obama era.

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Notice that in both the Brexit referendum and Trump's presidential election the result of the ballot box was against the odds. Curious, isn't it? Perhaps it is not that the polls are so shoddy or that the respondents are lying, but that they are pre-cooked by the establishment: Politicians and Euro-bureaucrats here; and politicians and Democrats (and even part of the Republicans) there. Faced with the risk of groundbreaking results that would annihilate the current (bad, yes, but familiar) course of the developed world, the mobilisation of the media to prevent Trump and Brexit has been enormous. It is clear that this establishment intended at all costs generating opinion among the population and not generate information for the population. But they have failed. And today the world is different on both sides of the Atlantic.

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A priori, a more inward-looking USA and a more Europe split in two, The two sides do not have to be loser scenarios, nor do they have to be winners. In any case, one winner is indisputable: Democracy. Only time will tell whether those 17 million Britons and 59 million Americans will have led us to a better or worse world. Because their sovereign decision will affect us all, and very much so. That's the thing about influential economies in a globalised world.

The two-speed EU is here.

To put us in perspective, it is worth re-reading the article entitled «The secret Franco-German Super-State project«, in which we highlight the radical change of plans that the leaders at the heart of the Union (sic) have planned for those states that cannot keep up with the economic pace of the more advanced EU countries (read periphery and centre). You can also read the devastating document This was the original text drafted by the French and German foreign ministers last June, in reaction to Brexit, which was leaked very discreetly to some second-tier media outlets. (more…)

Selective debt writedown.

A few months ago we wrote an article entitled «The Big Writedown« in which we warned of the possibility that the impasse of massive debt in which the whole world is mired could be circumvented in an imaginative way.

This formula is none other than the selective elimination of debt issues that are almost entirely in the hands of the respective central banks.

In this way, the loss that any default entails would be accounted for on the only balance sheets in the world that can be squared by making money out of thin air and moulded like chewing gum, namely the balance sheets of central banks.

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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…)

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