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Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts

Thursday, 26 July 2012

ECB pledges to do "whatever it takes" to preserve the Euro

Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank has reiterated today his commitment to the preservation of the common currency by hinting at upcoming supportive measures. Mr. Draghi said today during a conference in London that the ECB is prepared to do "whatever it takes" to keep the euro-boat afloat. The announcement sparked a relief rally in  risk assets such as the EUR/USD, the S&P500, Gold and Spanish yields. But, without hard facts, the rally will most likely be short lived.

Wednesday, 30 May 2012

Interested in negative yields ?

Yields are meant to repay the providers of capital for the risk of tying up their available liquidities into risky projects. The concept is related to the existence of time preference of money: a 1$ today is worth more than a 1$ tomorrow, because lending it entails lost consumption and investment opportunities and because that dollar is subject to inflation. Therefore the only theoretical way in which an interest would be zero, is if the perceived risk of the issuing entity is zero. If this is mesmerizing, than how would one explain the negative nominal yields on Swiss bonds ?