For credit investors, 2015 was bad a year (for energy bonds it may have been the worst on record) culminating with the gating and liquidation of several credit-focused mutual and hedge funds.
However, judging by these heatmaps, 2016 is shaping up to be even worse.
When it comes to geopolitics, all anyone wants to talk about is Syria. And understandably so.
When it comes to financial markets, all anyone wants to talk about is China - an equally understandable fixation.
To be sure, China was already a big driver of risk on/ risk off sentiment going into August of 2015. The “is it a hard landing or is it not” question very often dominated global macro discussions among those who enjoy debating such things.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said that relations between the West and Russia have deteriorated so badly that a new Cold War has been launched in 2016. “On an almost daily basis, we are being described the worst threat – be it to Nato as a whole, or to Europe, America or other countries,” Medvedev said. “Sometimes I wonder if this is 2016 or 1962,” he went on. BBC News reports: The Cold War was a period of ideological confrontation between the former Soviet Union and Western countries.
The Financial Times have revealed in a recent article that German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “handler” is the head of the European Central Bank and Jesuit Mario Draghi. According to the FT, Draghi manipulated Merkel to centralize financial power within Europe. Ktfnews.com reports: And German officials insist that Angela Merkel, the powerful third term German Chancellor, did not back Draghi’s policies of centralization of banking to clear the way for the European Central Bank to start buying Eurozone bonds.
With Q4 earnings season drawing to a close, here is a quick recap of the key issues facing corporate CEOs and CFOs based on their conference calls as summarized by Goldman's David Kostin: 1) Company managements forecast positive US GDP growth in 2016, in contrast with investor concerns of a potential recession. However, global growth prospects appear grim, particularly within commodity-exposed nations. (2) Strong domestic consumer demand persists amid industrial weakness. (3) Several firms announced large or accelerated share repurchase programs in 2016.