We look after your interests

(+34) 93 626 47 75

Torres Sarrià, Carrer de Can Ràbia, 3-5, 4ª Planta BCN 08017

(+34) 91 794 19 82

Pº de la Castellana, 93 2nd floor MADRID 28046

Category: Banca

Russia can revolutionise the bond market.

20150929_demoVeteran Bloomberg analyst Mark Gilbert wrote a prescient and excellent book in 2010 titled «Complicit: How greed and collusion made the credit crisis unstoppable«. Today he performs an analysis which could well be another of his clairvoyant premonitions: Russia could revolutionise classic bond issuance due to the interest generated by its low indebtedness, but above all due to the fact that it is under Western-imposed sanctions that prevent banks from operating with that country normally. (more…)

The Silence of the Conservatives.

About four years ago, the state of the European economies was so divergent that the markets were pricing in defaults across almost the entire periphery. Risk premiums were pushing half of Europe towards insolvency, and Germany was refusing to allow Draghi to flood the south of the continent with cash. The countdown to the break-up of the EU was underway, and that is what we warned at the time on Gurusblog. However, against all odds (at least as far as we were concerned), Draghi ignored the calls from Schäuble and began to expand the ECB’s balance sheet, just as the Fed had been doing since 2008. That marked the start of a journey into the unknown for the group of developed economies. (more…)

The Big Write-Down

La Historia nos demuestra que ante un problema la opción que se acaba aplicando es la menos dolorosa para la mayoría a corto plazo, a pesar de que no sea la mejor solución ni la más simple o racional. En cambio, las opciones que perjudican y son más dolorosas para la mayoría, a pesar de que sean las mejores o únicas soluciones, difícilmente acaban sucediendo. Por ello, un desenlace más que posible para el callejón sin salida en el que se han -nos han- metido los bancos centrales con su creación de dinero y deuda hasta el infinito y más allá, bien pudiera ser un masivo y jamás visto write-down o default diseñado de dicha deuda. Veamos los detalles. (more…)

The US law that will prioritise the Client's interest

Putting their clients' interests first. Something so obvious but at the same time so difficult to find among financial advisors and bankers is what a new law promoted by the US Department of Labor is going to regulate, for the time being only advisors who specifically recommend investments for their clients' old age (retirement investments and 401k). Perhaps in time this law will also be extended to all other non-specific advice for old age or retirement, although it seems unlikely that one day we will see something similar for all other advisors/bankers/real estate salesmen, home insurance, etc. (more…)

Fixed income: The bubble of the perfect storm

Las políticas de tipos cero que se han venido sosteniendo desde los Bancos Centrales del mundo más desarrollado para evitar el colapso de la deuda, han distorsionado por completo el sistema financiero. Los efectos colaterales de regalar el precio del dinero y la barra libre para evitar que los hiperendeudados (todo el mundo desarrollado) quiebren, son letales para los que deben generar rentas. Es un escenario amable con los insolventes pero muy hostil para los inversores, que se ven abocados a prestar su dinero a cambio de míseros rendimientos ofrecidos por emisores cada vez más peligrosos e insolventes.

A medida en que el dinero de los inversores se desplaza hacia la deuda más insolvente buscando desesperadamente unos puntos de rendimiento, la burbuja en los precios de toda la deuda, tanto desarrollada como emergente y en toda su curva, se hincha más y más. Los emisores más solventes o con bancos centrales dispuestos a comprarlo todo, tienen buena parte de sus curvas de tipos ya en negativo, o sea que los inversores deben pagar por prestarles su dinero. De igual modo los emisores menos solventes viven en una nube de liquidez que les permite endeudarse más y más pagando tipos como si fuesen grandes nombres multinacionales solventes. (more…)

Banco Madrid or the reckless corralito

Banco Madrid is the first bank that the state and its regulators have let fall in this galloping debt crisis. In fact, technically speaking, it has not been allowed to fall, i.e. it has not fallen due to the absence of a bailout with state funds, as other insolvent institutions have been rescued in recent years, but rather, forceful measures have been taken to liquidate it due to its -still- alleged money laundering. What is paradoxical is therefore that the reason for the intervention and the swift liquidation of the institution is not, at least originally, due to the feared insolvency but to criminal practices of great significance.

However, there is no shortage of conjecture pointing to other motivations of a less financial or political nature, as suggested by this article from ElConfidencial,this one from lasfinanzascambian.com or such an authoritative voice as Javier Cremades, chairman of Cremades & Calvo-Sotelo and president of the International Financial Litigation Network (IFLN) in this devastating article. In fact, it is strange, to say the least, that the report of the Sepblac to remain in Minister De Guindos' drawer The report had already warned of indications of various laundering offences before the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, which had not been processed until the USA demanded that action be taken. We are not therefore dealing with crimes or malpractice that have gone unnoticed until today, but rather with suspicions and indications that the competent bodies detected as early as June last year, but which they surprisingly ignored until the US financial police have come forward. (more…)

Why does every investor need an EAFI or a Family Office?

Perhaps for those of us who are professionally engaged in it, the answer may seem obvious. Especially for those of us who have suffered for decades in our own flesh the miseries and shortcomings of private banking. It is no coincidence that, in addition to being advisors, we were, are and will continue to be essentially investors, and as such, our interests are still, unfortunately, at the antipodes of those of the banks and their misnamed advice. Having said that, let us now analyse the transcendental decisions that every investor should take to advise on the correct management of their assets.

To begin with, the ordinary investor should analyse his or her asset situation and determine whether, in addition to purely financial advice, he or she also needs tax, legal, commercial, corporate or real estate advice. In other words, they may need to put their companies/businesses in order, their real estate investments or divestments, the administration of these properties, inheritance and family matters, their investments in the stock market and in unlisted companies, the generation of the necessary income for their family or projects, optimising the taxation of all of this, etc. (more…)

It's not for not collecting, it's for not accounting.

With central banks and their QE, the debt situation in the developed world has reached a surrealistic level worthy of study. Not only because of the unprecedented size of the balance sheets of the FED, ECB, BoE, BoJ, SNB, etc., but above all because of the manipulation of accounts, which has become a macabre and dangerous norm.

Thus, the manifest insolvency of the southern states of the Eurozone is the gigantic elephant in the room of the Troika (now renamed «the 3 institutions»: EU, ECB and IMF) that all these creditors ignore without the slightest blush. The most surreal case is that of Greece, which with Syriza at the head of its government is causing panic among its European partners. And this panic is not caused by the Greek state's inability to repay its massive debt - they have known that for years - but by the new government's willingness to publicly and openly acknowledge its insolvency.. Why? Simply because recognising that Greece will never be able to pay means having to write off losses on its creditors' balance sheets. And that really panics them, since neither the European banks nor the indebtedness and budget deficits of the other Eurozone countries are in such a state that they can count not a single euro of additional losses at the moment. (more…)

The side effects of Central Banks are already here.

various-central-banks

It was to be expected that central bank intervention would not be innocuous. We warned a little more than a year ago and its effects are already blowing up in some people's faces. If to this massive intervention never seen before we add a couple of other ingredients (Madonna, Madonna, just a couple...) such as OPEC's plot to push down the price of oil, the conflict in Ukraine or the radicalisation of the alleged Islamic State in the Middle East (which affects even Paris itself), the amplification of the side effects of central bank intervention can and will be uncontrollable.

Today we are already witnessing brutal price movements, which do not correspond at all to a healthy financial system, nor to corrections or adjustments of excesses, but rather to the delusions of a system that has been in place for years. frankeinsteinian capable of anything. Let us look at some very significant examples in recent weeks which, however, have paradoxically had rather localised devastating effects until today: (more…)

2015 could well be an annus horribilis for the traditional investor.

Before listing some of the risks we will face this year, let us define what we mean by «traditional investors». This term covers the vast majority of retail investors and even many institutional investors. These are the investors who put their money into traditional fixed-income and equity products typically marketed by banks. In other words, bonds and listed shares, as well as investment funds of all kinds that invest in these same assets, paying hefty commissions to the distributors (banks) to place them with their clients. Assets that performed well years ago, when the financial system was not overwhelmed by debt and the actions of central banks.

We must not lose sight of the fact that the conditions are ripe for most investors to have a disastrous year: (more…)

Shall we help you search?

Cluster Family Office

We care about transparency both in management and in our own way of working. Leading wealth management and family offices company

Do you need help in capital and wealth management?

How can I avoid the negative effects that my fortune may have on my children?

How and when should I talk to my children about family wealth, and what relationship should they have with money throughout their adolescence?

How can I measure the real risks of my investments and protect my assets adequately?

Do I have sufficient liquidity and stable income to cover my needs on a permanent basis?