Banks

We do not usually comment on press articles, but we were all quite surprised to read a piece on Bloomberg titled “A fragile banking system won’t make Europe stronger”.

In spite of what looks like a quiet week ahead, there are a couple of data releases in the coming days that require close attention, these releases could potentially disturb the fragile calm that we are enjoying in the first trading hours of the week.

The European Central Bank (ECB) will almost certainly start their rates cutting cycle next month. Supportive inflation data and clear guidance from the governing council has driven market implied probabilities of a June cut to almost 100%, with little in the way to derail that.

The most important event this week is likely to be this Wednesday’s US Consumer Prices Index (CPI) release.

The first four months of this year have seen €11.6bn in gross Additional Tier 1 (AT1) issuance from European banks, across euros, dollars and sterling markets.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting was a relatively uneventful one, but there are a few points worth highlighting.

Recently, BBVA announced that it had approached the management of Banco Sabadell, to explore a possible merger between both entities, with BBVA also appointing advisers for this purpose.

Money supply measures such as M1 and M2 enjoyed a relatively brief period of fame and glory just after the pandemic.

Volatility made an unwanted come back this week. A combination of rising tensions in the Middle East, strong Consumer Price Index (CPI) and labour market data in the US in previous days, and markets that looked somewhat expensive in certain sectors, all conspired to cause a widening in spreads and a correction in equity prices.

The Additional Tier 1's product was first launched in early 2013, so the asset class has mostly seen the period of negative interest rates and challenging operating environment post the Euro zone crisis.

The US Consumer Price Index (CPI) surprised on the upside for the third month in a row. There was nowhere to hide in the release with a majority of sub categories and sub aggregates posting worse numbers than expected.

It has been an eventful few weeks in the European high yield market. After waiting a long time for a bus to come along, three have come along at once.