With bad news out of Greece and other southern eurozone states casting a long shadow over much of Europe in recent months, finding relative value has become more difficult. Certainly, equities and currencies do not offer the same buying opportunities that they did during the Q209-Q309 rally. However, a weak growth outlook on the back… [Read more]
On Monday, November 9, much of Europe will be celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the catalyst it provided for the collapse of Communism on the continent. BMI’s Justin Patrie explains the significance of this event for Emerging Europe, and what the outlook is for the next 20 years… [Read more]
Reports that US President Barack Obama will overhaul a plan to build a missile defence shield in the Czech Republic and Poland would appear to represent a major foreign policy shift on Washington’s part, given that the shield was eagerly championed by the Bush administration. The official explanation for Obama’s shift is that Iran’s missiles… [Read more]
BMI’s Justin Patrie cautions against premature excitement following the release of Q2 GDP data for several CEE and eurozone economies. Nevertheless, differentiation will remain key and the usual suspects (i.e. Turkey and Poland) continue to stand out as the ideal relative value play.
‘A tale of two Europes’ seems to be the best way to describe the slew of Q2 GDP releases that came out in the second week of August. On the upside, Germany and France, the two largest eurozone economies, surprised most analysts by surging out of recession and posting 0.3% q-o-q growth. This helped to… [Read more]
Three months ago, Justin Patrie, Head of Emerging Europe at Business Monitor came onto the podcast to discuss Central and Eastern Europe. At the time, very weak Q408-Q109 economic data suggested a deep macroeconomic crisis, with the level of contraction unprecedented in the post-Soviet era. Since then, though, global market and macro sentiment has improved,… [Read more]
Moldova is in the midst of yet another political crisis. By this, I actually mean that the country has entered a new phase of a pre-existing crisis – a crisis that yields valuable lessons on the broader significance of political institutions to a country’s risk profile. Fortunately, this new scene in the ongoing drama has… [Read more]
