Opinion Perspective and real solvency of banks
Can a universal bank go bankrupt ? An objective, rigorous and professional answer is built in three stages: credibility of the banks performed stress tests - assessment of prudential regulation to come - understanding the evolution of the banking business (...)
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Note Euro zone bailout plans: origin and utilization
Back on bailout plans granted to countries in the Euro zone encountering severe fiscal deficits since May 2010. How are tens of billions Euros raised, what are they for, and mainly, are those amounts enough to re-establish the public finances and stabilize those countries (...)
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Opinion The Euro will survive, but not the current Euro zone !
If the existence of the euro is not challenged, it is the case of the euro zone in its current configuration. In the same way that cohabitation between countries with maintaining parity exchange had become impossible in the EMS, cohabitation has become impossible within (...)
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Note Financial markets and self-fulfilling prophecies
This phenomenon is equivalent to the change from a brutal economic and financial equilibrium to another, not because the fundamentals of the macroeconomic environment would justify it, but because there was a change for good or bad reasons of market (...)
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Regulation Basel III: regulators seem to ignore market failures
The changes in our regulatory framework (BASEL 3) and the widespread use of inappropriate IFRS rules will not solve the imbalances of the international financial and economic system
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Note 10 proposals to rebuild finance and monetary macroeconomics
Rethink monetary policy and its objectives, reform our accounting and prudential environment, review the return on equity standards, regulate the prices of certain assets...
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Strategy Forex, a value added in an allocation between real and financial assets
The foreign exchange market (Forex) is not an extra asset class but all asset classes together in the same market. It can be a real source of diversification and performance subject to a systematic, disciplined and rigorous (...)
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Opinion The Euro will survive In fine !
We do not believe or at least most of the implosion scenarios of the euro zone regardless of the terms. -Not because we would be trying to find one or several sustainable solutions to the crisis of sovereign debt, but because such a process would cost too much to everybody (...)
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Opinion Reviewing the bank stress tests – July 2011
As was seen during the stress tests carried out in July 2010, the latest ones published by the European Banking Authority on the 15th of July 2011 do not include a proper measure of market systemic risk. This hinders their (...)
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Strategy Bond market: Investment opportunities on yield curves
Anticipations on future monetary policy and risk aversion linked to systemic threats create investment opportunities on the yield curves of US and Euro bonds. However, those opportunities cannot be seized before two fundamental questions have been (...)
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Stories The Greek crisis : the Danaides’ barrel ?
Back on the Greek saga or the largest bankruptcy in the 21st century without credit event trigger (to date). The succession of bailout plans shows that we do not simply resolve the insolvency of a country by emergency (...)
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Opinion Complex and useless finance is still there
While complex finance should be preferred to improve risk modeling, it continues, in times of market stress, to help designing unmanageable and useless complex structured products
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Note The frantic flight to liquidity and solvency
Some markets have been exhibiting dysfunctions for nearly 4 years. The flight to liquidity and compliance with solvency requirements of banks and states with financial issues, have been - and still is - only ensured by non-conventional financing provisions and emergency (...)
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Opinion Mathematical models in finance and embedded risk underestimation
The statistical assumption of normal (log-normal) distribution of stock returns (prices) is not that strong and tail events’ occurrence is largely undervalued. Nevertheless, this modeling framework has been widely used for strong (...)
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Financial crisis Eurozone: 3 future scenarios
This is the first part of a series consisting of 3 articles covering the perspectives of the Eurozone… In order to get out of the crisis, three scenarios are conceivable. The most probable of them is unfortunately the one where one or several countries exit the economic and (...)
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