Frankfurt

Last month, we discussed how Frankfurt was emerging as the clear winner. When UBS staff were asked to rank which city they would prefer to be relocated to, their options were Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Madrid. Our top picks would have been Paris and Dublin, which didn’t even make the short list. On 19 October 2017, Goldman’s Chairman, Lloyd Blankfein, garnered lots of media attention after he tweeted.

"Just left Frankfurt. Great meetings, great weather, really enjoyed it. Good, because I'll be spending a lot more time there. #Brexit."

World stocks stayed near peaks and currencies moved in tight ranges on Wednesday as China’s 19th Communist Party Congress opened while focus in Europe turned to speeches from top euro zone central bankers before next week’s key policy meeting, as well as Catalonia's ultimatum due on Thursday. S&P futures are solidly in the green as usual, with Dow futures jumping above 23,000, driven higher by IBM as investors looked for new reasons to extend gains after hitting new all-time highs Tuesday.

Last week's bullish sentiment that sent the S&P not only to a new all time highs, but a burst of last-second buying pushed above 2,500 for the first time ever, has carried through to the new week, with European and Asian shares rallying across the board, US futures again the green, and world stocks hitting a new record high on Monday ahead of a historic Fed meeting in which the FOMC is expected to announce the start of the shrinkage of its balance sheet.

In a project dubbed 'Bowline', Bloomberg reports that Deutsche Bank may shift about 300 billion euros ($350 billion) from the balance sheet of its U.K. entity to Frankfurt as client trading and assets migrate to the continent following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. While not the first bank to threaten to move post-Brexit, the scale of asset movement is the largest yet.

Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,