In an era where a global financial crisis has been caused not by developments in Russia, South-East Asia or Argentina, but by banking insolvency in the United States and sovereign default risks in a eurozone member state, namely Greece, our panel of senior commentators discusses what it means to be an ‘emerging market’. Justin Patrie, [Read more...]

 

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We have previously highlighted on Risk Watchdog how the aftermath of the global financial crisis has exposed the structural imbalances in many developed economies, while also singling out those emerging markets which are in a fundamentally sound position to exploit the global economic recovery. Poland and Greece are certainly two prime examples at opposite ends [Read more...]

With risk appetite still on and markets racing ahead, I have been seeking out some of the more unconventional, ‘frontier’ plays. These are not for the faint-hearted but I like the look of several sovereign bonds – Ghana’s US$ 2017 global bond, Republic of Congo’s US$ 2029 global bond and Ukraine’s US$ 2013 global bond. [Read more...]

As the macroeconomic and financial market maelstrom continues to engulf the Emerging Europe region, one of the questions I’m asked most is the prospects for sovereign defaults in 2009. With benchmark government bonds and CDS spreads across the region continuing to widen towards record levels, the fears of the dreaded ‘D’ word seem to increase [Read more...]