The arrest of former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, coming a month before the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, would appear to mark the symbolic end of a dark chapter in Balkan history. Of course, memories of the Yugoslav wars will linger for decades yet, but many… [Read more]
Further to my musings on whether ‘decoupling’ is fact or fiction, I’d like to briefly point out two of the curiosities of the current global equity rally. The first curiosity is how out of touch the rally seems to be with the fundamentals. My overall view is that this rally is simply a correction in… [Read more]
This Halloween has proven particularly ghoulish for Serbian borrowers. On October 31, the National Bank of Serbia became the second European central bank in as many weeks to hike rates sharply, raising its policy rate by 200bps to bring it to 17.75%. This followed the National Bank of Hungary’s October 22 decision to hike its… [Read more]