The ECB has denied that it opposed the Spanish Government’s plan to recapitalise Bankia using Spanish government debt. It has simply issued a brief official statement to the media, explaining that the ECB has not been consulted on the Spanish (bank) recapitalisation plans. But what happened a few hours earlier is more than a little curious. (more…)
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There is no greater failure than that of someone who gives up on success. Something similar happens to investment funds that stick to their benchmark indices, confident that, despite their mediocrity, the firms they work for will have no trouble marketing these funds on a massive scale, and will never blame them for failing to shine. A bank’s commercial capacity is directly proportional to the mediocrity of its investment products. Perhaps it’s because Necessity is the mother of invention, and fund managers at independent fund management firms (which do not belong to banks, at least not directly) can only compete for a place in the investment sales arena by demonstrating sheer quality and superior returns compared with their competitors. 
There is something worse than being poor and insolvent, and that is having to hide one’s poverty whilst feigning opulence and grandeur. Woe betide anyone who has to pretend to be rich, when they are not, just to keep their business afloat! For insolvency and poverty, when faced with sincerity and honesty, become more dignified, more hopeful and less miserable. The fact is that working in a sector such as banking—which necessarily requires those in the business to feign wealth and stability in order to win the trust of their customers—is something one can live with when the bank is genuinely wealthy and solvent. But when the business goes awry and the leverage inherent in banking itself completely erodes the solvency and soundness of the institutions, that façade of opulence becomes a macabre lie, resulting in the schizophrenic loss of all contact with reality (as we said in
We are in the eye of the storm. But not because of injustice or envy of our northern neighbours—no—but because of our own foolishness. That foolishness which has led us in the past to vote for governments of both political stripes, yet with one thing in common: an inability to manage the Spanish economy. We have missed a golden opportunity, given that economic growth and the surge in job creation in the Eurozone allowed us to boast of macroeconomic figures that made even those of France itself pale in comparison. And so Zapatero proclaimed on occasion, although today it is the Mercozy duo who must stifle their feelings in the face of the grotesque and surreal tragicomedy of the current periphery. «Spain is doing well,» we proclaimed to the four winds just a decade ago. Those were years when illusions of grandeur led the presidents of Spain and Portugal to meet in the Azores with the very presidents of the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Aznar, Barroso, Blair and Bush together shaping the plans that were to govern the New World Order. That was only nine years ago, but it seems so long ago…
It’s already a 
First of all, we must tell you that the subject we are going to deal with today is complex and may offend some professional sensibilities. But that is not our intention at all, but rather our interest is focused on clarifying a situation that is currently generating a lot of confusion and, more importantly, is damaging families with a certain amount of wealth. Both large fortunes and small savers. We will therefore discuss, for example, Santander's convertible bonds, the recent inflammatory statements by Greg Smith (ex-Goldman Sachs), the types of assets that a properly diversified wealth should contain, the Spanish and Luxembourg regulators, banking, EAFIs, Family Office, or how to distinguish between a perverse advice and a perverse advice. comme il faut. We apologise for the length of the post, but we have chosen to publish it in its entirety so as not to lose the thread in the middle of the reflections that follow. 
That exceptional measures should be taken in exceptional situations is pure common sense. And the 
This week I came across an article published in FundsPeople titled «
Knowing which types of assets or which companies’ shares are going to skyrocket in the coming months is the pipe dream of those who, rather than investing, speculate. Of those who are hoping for a windfall to bail them out of the financial difficulties they have got themselves into through their own foolishness. But even if Lady Luck were to smile on them, their poor judgement would remain just as bad. Consequently, they will believe themselves to be shrewd investors rather than merely lucky, and their cycle of financial difficulties, windfalls and further difficulties will repeat itself, at best. In the long run, the result for most of them is that their forays as speculators (even though they describe themselves as investors), far from supplementing their income, cost them a significant portion of the wages they have earned through the sweat of their brow over the years. And if at any point they were to make an objective calculation of their gains and losses—something they consciously or unconsciously avoid doing—the balance sheet would reveal the harsh reality: that throughout their investing lives, a large part of their own and their families’ well-being has been taken by Mr Market.