Economia y finanzas - Cluster Family Office

El Silencio de los Conservadores.

Hace unos 4 años la situación de las economías europeas divergía tanto que los Mercados cotizaban defaults en casi toda la periferia. Las primas de riesgo arrojaban a media Europa en brazos de la insolvencia y Alemania le negaba a Draghi el permiso para inundar de billetes el sur del continente. La cuenta atrás para la ruptura de la UE estaba en marcha, y así lo advertimos entonces en Gurusblog. Sin embargo, contra todo pronóstico (al menos el nuestro), Draghi desoyó las consignas de Schäuble y comenzó a ampliar el balance del BCE como venía haciendo la FED desde 2008. Ese fue el inicio del rumbo a lo desconocido del colectivo de economías desarrolladas. (more…)

All bets are off.

The medium to long term horizon for investors is very dark. A report by McKinsey Global Institute (download here) hits the nail on the head in concluding that investment returns in general over the next two decades (at least) will be very low. Historically well below what the markets have offered over the last 30 years, and I would add, well below what has been achieved on average over the whole of the 20th century, Great Depression included. There are plenty of reasons for this if you open your eyes and look at the numbers. Let's see. (more…)

Renting or buying?

Many would do well to tinker again with the typical interactive pages, such as the one offered by the NYT («Is it better to rent or to buy».»), to try to find out whether it would be more interesting today to buy or rent a property. As you can see if you do this exercise, the key is in the variables of the evolution of the price and rent of real estate, but above all of the income that we are able to obtain from the money in the coming years. We can also fine-tune by introducing a multitude of variables such as inflation expectations, taxes on the purchase and sale of the property, maintenance and community expenses, real estate agent's commissions, etc. Logically, the structure of this interactive website is based on the costs and format of the North American Real Estate market, but you can adapt it approximately to our real estate market.

It is difficult to foresee where real estate prices will go in Spain 5 to 10 years down the road. But even more difficult to gauge is the inflation - or deflation - to which central banks will lead us in the medium to long term, even they have no idea. And to complicate matters further, we must be aware that, depending on inflation and the price of money, financial repression (the effects of which we explained in detail in 2013) will last, penalising rentiers and other investors, or will give way to an increase in investment returns in general. And as we said, this is perhaps the most important variable in the decision to rent or buy a property at the moment. But beware, because many poorly advised investors, faced with their inability to achieve financial returns, are throwing themselves into the arms of a real estate market that still has a downward path in the medium and long term, despite the much-vaunted rebound in the short term. Especially if the national economy remains in the ICU with a galloping deficit and growing debt. Because both evils are the enemies of sustainable economic growth and hinder job creation and wage increases, which are so necessary to turn around the current downward real estate cycle that began almost a decade ago. In this New Normal, reality is very stubborn and the future is even more uncertain.

Putin and the Middle East conflict, 2 years on.

Some of you may remember the article we published a little over two years ago entitled «Russia's Motives».». At the time the Western media could not (and do not) see beyond their noses and insisted on warning of Putin's demonic will to invade the whole of Ukraine after annexing Crimea. They biasedly ignored the fact that the elected Ukrainian president, Yanukovych, had been overthrown in a coup d'état dubbed Euromaidan, Maidan Square Revolution, Revolution of Dignity and other sweetened euphemisms. The fact is that, apart from the fact that this coup/revolution has, over time, done more harm than good to Ukrainians as a whole, Western public opinion feared that Russia's military response to Crimea was only the beginning of a pan-European war invasion in the purest secular style. We recommend re-reading it before continuing our reflections today, two years later. (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…)

Greece: The moment of truth.

The time has come. The last cartridge has already been fired, and it is none other than the reunification of the principal payments that Greece owes to the IMF for the month of June until the last day of the month. In other words, 30 June is the moment of truth, since all possible rabbits have already been pulled out of the chisteras of the euro-bureaucrats in these almost 3 years of Greek agony.

Yesterday it was requested in extremis that the June maturities, starting today on the 5th and followed by another due date on the 12th, be combined into a single payment on the 30th. This was the last legally established possibility of postponement without falling into manifest default. No more. The end of the pantomime and theatrics between Varoufakis, Tsipras, the men in black, the iron hand of Dijsselbloem, Merkel and the Vaseline of Draghi and Lagarde. On the last day of June Greece will officially go bankrupt (unofficially it has been bankrupt for years), unless Germany and the rest of the «rich north» give in, i.e. pay the debts of the corrupt south, which is highly unlikely. Let us not forget that some central banks have already prepare contingencies The «Greexit» has been unspeakable for more than 3 years. (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…)

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.

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…)

Have you won the lottery jackpot? The first 5 decisions you need to make.

Most lucky lottery winners end up losing their entire fortune within a few years. This is a quasi-universal law that affects the vast majority of lottery winners, as bad decisions start as early as the first minute after the draw. Let's see how bad decisions can be avoided in the first days or weeks after being chosen by the goddess Fortune. We will summarise them in 5 essential decisions and present them to you in the usual chronological order in which they should be taken.

The first The golden rule would be maximum discretion. The fewer people who know that we have won the jackpot or any other lottery, euromillions, etc., the better, much better. Not only for security reasons, but also to avoid, as far as possible, becoming a tempting lure for fraudsters, tricksters and unscrupulous and unscrupulous investment hunters. And bankers should also be included in this bag, as they will immediately be on the lookout for their prey as soon as they smell the blood of the nouveau riche and its irresistible liquidity. However, some bankers will have to be told, since the winning tenth or tenths must be deposited in a bank for collection and the corresponding 20% withholding, in other words, the first tax bite from the State. But be careful, (more…)

(+34) 93 626 47 75

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Category: Economia y finanzas

El Silencio de los Conservadores.

All bets are off.

Renting or buying?

Putin and the Middle East conflict, 2 years on.

The Big Write-Down

Greece: The moment of truth.

Fixed income: The bubble of the perfect storm

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

The side effects of Central Banks are already here.

Have you won the lottery jackpot? The first 5 decisions you need to make.

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(+34) 93 626 47 75

(+34) 91 794 19 82