Trump sees Japan's Abe as ally in push back against China: adviser

 Fri Nov 11, 2016 | 2:16am EST

Reuters

By Tim Kelly | TOKYO
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's meeting next week with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may mark the start of talks to garner Japan's support for a push back against China's growing influence in Asia, a security adviser to Trump said.

Trump's campaign comments, including a demand Japan pay more for the upkeep of U.S. forces on its soil, have worried Tokyo about a rift in a security alliance with Washington, in the face of a rising China and a volatile North Korea, that has been the bedrock of its defense since World War Two.

A tougher stance against China, however, and a call for Japan to play a bigger security role through a Trump-Abe axis would however fit with Abe's hawkish policies that include allowing the military to operate more freely overseas.

Sterling soars to 6-week high against weakening euro

Thu Nov 10, 2016 | 12:54pm EST

By Jemima Kelly and Patrick Graham | LONDON
Sterling surged 1.5 percent to a six-week high against the euro on Thursday, as investors unwound short positions against the pound amid uncertainty about the fallout from the U.S. election and focused on upcoming European political risks.

The pound's almost 20 percent slide since Britain voted to leave the European Union in June has been the main currency story on developed markets in the months that have followed, and investors have built up record short positions against it on the view that it has further to fall.

But the fog of uncertainty created by Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential vote, after a campaign that included a range of potentially disruptive policy pledges, from building a wall between the United States and Mexico to declaring China a currency manipulator, could provide a different set of impulses over the next few months.

Greece Establishes Independent Media Authority to Handle TV Licenses

Court had previously struck down ruling party’s auction of broadcast permits

The Wall Street Journal

By NEKTARIA STAMOULI
Nov. 10, 2016 2:41 p.m. ET
0 COMMENTS
ATHENS—Greece’s government and opposition late on Thursday broke an impasse toward the regulation of the country’s television sector, after they formed an independent media watchdog that will now take responsibility for organizing the new licensing procedure.

The presidents of the parliament reached a cross-party consent in the appointment of the nine-member body of the National Council for Radio and Television. The number of the licenses that will be auctioned will be decided by the new independent authority.

Greece to ease capital controls soon, needs debt measures: Stournaras

Thu Nov 10, 2016 | 5:50am EST

Reuters

By George Georgiopoulos and Balazs Koranyi | ATHENS
Greece will soon ease capital controls further but full liberalization will depend on progress in easing the country's debt burden, which is also a precondition for entering the ECB's asset buying scheme, central bank chief Yannis Stournaras said.

Propped up by three successive bailouts, Greece hopes to emerge from a long recession next year. But much of its outlook depends on getting a long-sought reduction of its huge debt pile, easing capital restrictions and inclusion in the ECB's 1.74 trillion asset buying scheme.

What explains the speed of recovery from banking crises?

Christian Ambrosius 

Freie Universität Berlin, School of Business and Economics/Institute for Latin American Studies, 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jimonfin.2016.09.007

Abstract

While a large body of research has explored the causes and effects of banking crises, less is known about what determines recovery from banking crises, despite large variations in post-crisis performances across countries. In order to identify local and global factors that determine the length of recovery (i.e. the time it takes until countries reach their pre-crisis level of per capita GDP), this exploratory paper employs event–history analysis on 138 incidents of banking crises between 1970 and 2012. Regarding domestic factors, the simultaneous occurrence of currency crises, large financial sectors, overvalued currencies and large primary deficits are associated with later recovery, whereas higher debt-to-GDP ratios or inflation levels do not exhibit a negative effect on post-crisis performances. Regarding external factors, a low growth of world trade as well as indicators of uncertainty in financial markets are correlated with later recovery. Global interest rate shocks are particularly harmful for the speed of recovery among middle-income countries with a strong reliance on external capital. The results are similar when using the length of recessions as an alternative indicator of post-crisis performances.

To see full article: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261560616301164

Greece's Golden Dawn says Trump win a victory for ethnically 'clean' states

Wed Nov 9, 2016 | 4:18am EST

Reuters

Nov 9 Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party hailed Donald Trump's election as president of the United States, calling it a victory against "illegal immigration" and in favour of ethnically "clean" nations.

Golden Dawn, Greece's third-largest party, took its first seats in parliament in 2012 on a backlash against austerity policies in Greece, which has received three international bailouts since 2010.

Greece's bank fund may call for NBG shareholder meeting

Wed Nov 9, 2016 | 1:35pm EST

Reuters

Greece's bank rescue fund said it might call a special shareholder meeting at National Bank of Greece (NBGr.AT) after voting against the appointment of a new chairman.

The rescue fund, known has HFSF, which holds a 40 percent stake in NBG, said in a statement on Wednesday that it might call an extraordinary shareholders meeting on the issue.

"HFSF... is contemplating calling an extraordinary general meeting taking into account that the smooth cooperation between the board of directors of NBG and the controlling shareholder is essential," the fund said.

DEUTSCHE BANK: It's hard to tell what Trump's election means for the euro

Business insider UK
Will Martin

Predicting which way the dollar will go against the euro now that Donald Trump will become the 45th President of the United States is near impossible, according to economists at Deutsche Bank.

Writing in a special report on the implications of Trump's victory in the euro area, a team led by Senior Economist Marco Stringa argues that the way the greenback will move against the euro — one of its most important crosses — in the medium term is "ambiguous."

On Wednesday morning, the euro initially surged against the dollar, picking up almost 2% in early trading, before paring its gains, and ending up in negative territory in early afternoon trade.

Trump promised Brexit ‘times five.’ He delivered.

The Washinhton Post

By Adam Taylor November 9 at 11:22 AM

As Donald Trump's campaign progressed, Britain's June 23 vote to leave the European Union was clearly on his mind.

“They will soon be calling me MR. BREXIT!” Trump tweeted in August, prompting a somewhat confused response. He soon upped the ante — telling supporters at rallies in October that the U.S. presidential election would be “Brexit plus” and “Brexit times five.”

It was certainly possible to see the similarities in the two campaigns. Both Trump fans and Brexiters tended to be people who scorned the status quo and held negative views about globalization, immigration and political correctness. Often they wanted to upend the system and evinced a desire to bring their respective countries back to greatness.

First Grexit, Then Brexit, Now Trump?

Bryan Rich ,   CONTRIBUTOR

Forbes

As we head into the election, everyone involved in markets is trying to predict how stocks will perform on the results. When the Clinton e-mail scandal bubbled up again, the stock market lost ground for nine straight days, the longest losing streak since 1980. Since the probe has allegedly ended, stocks have been up.

Does it mean Clinton is good for stocks and Trump is bad for stocks? Not likely.

Big institutional money managers think they have a better understanding of what the world will look like under Clinton than Trump, and therefore feel more compelled to go on with business as usual heading into the event (i.e. allocating capital across the stock market) with the expectation of a Clinton win, and conversely, they’re not as compelled to do so with the expectation that Trump might win (i.e. they sit tight and watch).

Dollar strengthens as election seen swinging toward Clinton

Mon Nov 7, 2016 | 3:10pm EST

Reuters

By Dion Rabouin | NEW YORK
The dollar rose on Monday after the FBI decided that U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will not face criminal charges, which was seen as a boost to her chances of winning Tuesday's contest with Republican rival Donald Trump.

The greenback gained 0.75 percent against a basket of currencies .DXY after getting hammered last week when FBI Director James Comey said the agency was looking at another large batch of Clinton emails, strengthening chances of a Trump victory, an outcome that was seen as likely to send shock waves through financial markets.

Brexit Feels Like a Very British Coup

NOV 8, 2016 1:01 AM EST

Bloomberg

By
Mark Gilbert
There's a joke doing the rounds on Twitter:

Brexit walks into a bar. "Why the long farce?" asks the barman.
Unfortunately, it's too close to the truth to be truly funny. Post-referendum Britain feels oddly different to the pre-plebisicite United Kingdom; less united, certainly, and also somewhat diminished as a kingdom.

Less than five months after the surprise U.K. vote to leave the European Union, and at least four months before exit negotiations will officially begin, the acrimony surrounding Brexit is intensifying.

Euro founding father Otmar Issing warns about project's future

By Colletta Smith and Mark Syred
BBC 5 Live
7 November 2016

BBC News

Prof Otmar Issing told the BBC's Wake up to Money that faultlines across the eurozone remain, citing economic weakness in Greece, Portugal and Italy.
The European Central Bank's first chief economist also warned about the impact of negative interest rates.
And he said political pressures threatened central banks' independence.
Prof Issing told the BBC that structural problems in the eurozone and dwindling public support in some countries were still major problems.

Mosul battle: 'IS leader Baghdadi' urges no retreat

3-11-2016
BBC

The so-called Islamic State group has released an audiotape which it says is from its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
If true, it would be the first public message from him in about a year and would dispel rumours that he is dead.
The voice on the audio calls on Iraqis to defend the city of Mosul against the Iraqi army, which is attempting to re-take it from the militants.
Baghdadi's whereabouts remain unknown. Some officials have said he may be inside Mosul alongside IS fighters.
It has not been independently verified that the voice in the audio belongs to Baghdadi. There have been repeated rumours of his death through the years, including last year when the Iraqi military said it had hit his convoy.
Mosul, the last IS urban stronghold in Iraq, is where Baghdadi declared a caliphate two years ago.

Brexit: High Court judges to give legal verdict

03-11-2016
BBC

Senior judges heard a challenge last month from campaigners who argue Prime Minister Theresa May does not have the power to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty without MPs' approval.
The PM has promised to trigger Article 50 by the end of March 2017.
Its author, Lord Kerr, has told the BBC he believed it was "not irrevocable".
Judges are set to give their verdict at 10:00 GMT.

Brexit so complex it could overwhelm politicians, warn senior academics

Independent group says leaving EU will test constitution and legal framework to their limits and ‘possibly beyond’

The Guardian

Managing Britain’s exit from the European Union is such a formidable and complex challenge that it could overwhelm politicians and civil servants for years, senior academics have warned.

Theresa May has announced she will trigger article 50 – the two-year process of negotiating a separation from the EU – by the end of March next year. The government will also publish a great repeal bill, which will transfer all EU-originated laws into British law, so that MPs can decide how much they want to discard.

After another release of documents, FBI finds itself caught in a partisan fray

The Washington Post

By Rosalind S. Helderman, Tom Hamburger and Sari Horwitz
November 1 at 9:04 PM

The surprise tweet from a little-used FBI account came about 1 p.m. Tuesday, announcing that the agency had published on its website 129 pages of internal documents related to a years-old investigation into former president Bill Clinton’s pardon of a fugitive Democratic donor.

The seemingly random reminder of one of the darkest chapters of the Clinton presidency a week before the election drew an immediate rebuke from Hillary Clinton’s campaign — with its spokesman tweeting that the FBI’s move was “odd” and asking whether the agency planned to publish unflattering records about Republican candidate Donald Trump.

An economist who was in the middle of the storm recounts Greece’s financial crisis

The Boston Globe

By Jonathan Schlefer
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT  NOVEMBER 01, 2016
When economist George Papaconstantinou returned to Greece after working for a decade at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, he settled into a series of comfortable government and academic jobs. Then, to his surprise, PASOK, the social-democratic party, asked him to run for Parliament. He lost the first time but won in 2007. He also began advising the party leader, George Papandreou, on economic issues. Named PASOK’s press spokesman, he helped give the party a fresh, young image, contributing to its landslide election victory in 2009.

For Greeks, property equals debt

2 Nov 2016

Nikos Konstandaras Contributing Writer

The New York Times

People are turning their backs on what used to be a pillar of the country’s economy and society: real estate.

At law courts throughout Greece, people are lining up to file papers renouncing their inheritance. Not necessarily because some feckless uncle left them with a pile of debt at the end of his revels; they are turning their backs on what used to be a pillar of Greece’s economy and society: real estate. Growing personal debt, declining incomes and ever higher taxes as Greece’s depression grinds on have turned property and the dream of easy money into dread of a catastrophic burden.

Greece Defies EU, U.S. on Sanctions for Iran’s Bank Saderat

Athens bucks allies by vetoing renewal of sanctions against bank U.S. accuses of financing terrorism

The Wall Street Journal

By LAURENCE NORMAN in Brussels and  NEKTARIA STAMOULI in Athens
Updated Nov. 1, 2016 4:28 p.m. ET

Greece has defied its European allies and Washington by blocking European Union sanctions on an Iranian bank the U.S. accuses of financing terrorism, officials familiar with the move say.

Athens’s action last month marked the first time a European country has picked apart the sanctions regime meant to remain in place following the July 2015 nuclear accord with Tehran. The regime is designed to constrain Iran’s ability to resume illicit activities and pressure it to stick by the agreement.