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...]

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...]

In Business Monitor International’s second weekly podcast Mark Schaltuper speaks to Justin Patrie about the economic outlook for Central and Eastern Europe. How will the region perform compared to the Asian Financial Crisis of 1998?

 

 CEE 2009 vs Asia 1998 [10:41m]
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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...]

It’s hard to believe how conditions have changed
CEE, you’re acting a little bit deranged.
Where once there were dreams of economic convergence
We now have nightmares, of defaults and divergence.
As growth turns to slowdown, and slowdown to recession
I hesitate to look forward, for the likely depression.

Ok, enough armchair poetry. Let’s get to the serious stuff. In yet [Read more...]

I love January. While most of my colleagues sit around the office complaining about the weather and the extra pounds they’ve put on over the holidays, I sit at my desk staring at the computer screen with a big grin on my face. What’s not to love? In addition to the underlying feelings of rebirth [Read more...]

The economic data from Russia continues to get worse, confirming my view that the country is headed straight for a recession in 2009. The latest comes from state-owned bank VTB, which released its Purchasing Manager’s Index-based GDP indicator on January 7. The reading implied that the Russian economy is already contracting, having collapsed to its [Read more...]