Is the end nigh for the Euro? [vol. 3]

[Digga]

Timmy40 said:

Really? UK House prices outside of London are at or below pre bust levels, and London itself has seem house price inflation for a number of reasons most of which have absolutely nothing to do with QE and more to do with Global security.

I think given where we might well be without QE ( look at the EU for an example ) it can be judged to have been a massive policy success.

I meant inflation of shares etc. which certainly has happened.

If this sounds like a hairshirt commie whinge, I should point out that I watched a number of personal investments far exceed my own expectations of them, so I'm not crying or saying "not fair" because I missed out. What worries me - and knowing the UK SME market very well I have a decent idea of this - is how tight credit remained throughout and how little upside there has been to the real economy during the period of QE.

[Timmy40]

Digga said:

Timmy40 said:

Really? UK House prices outside of London are at or below pre bust levels, and London itself has seem house price inflation for a number of reasons most of which have absolutely nothing to do with QE and more to do with Global security.

I think given where we might well be without QE ( look at the EU for an example ) it can be judged to have been a massive policy success.

I meant inflation of shares etc. which certainly has happened.

If this sounds like a hairshirt commie whinge, I should point out that I watched a number of personal investments far exceed my own expectations of them, so I'm not crying or saying "not fair" because I missed out. What worries me - and knowing the UK SME market very well I have a decent idea of this - is how tight credit remained throughout and how little upside there has been to the real economy during the period of QE.

The FTSE isn't exactly stratospheric. It's only really the US. As for the upside, I think it's more the case of given how catastrophic the downside threatened to be it's amazing how little unemployment/repossesions happened.

All this bleating on about the cost of living crises, I'd rather cope with a real terms reduction in spending power of 15% over several years ( with time to adjust ) than an immediate 100% reduction in spending power as a result of being unemployed.

[steviegunn]

60bn yoyos a month till Sep 2016

[Gargamel]

steviegunn said:

60bn yoyos a month till Sep 2016

I thought this was the more interesting story from the beeb - no wonder they always think they are right.



"The brand new ECB building, which has arisen in one Frankfurt’s tougher Ostend Eastern quarters, is leading to local gentrification as almost 3,000 bankers move in.

The twisted together 45-storey glass towers, 607 feet tall, next to Frankfurt's river Main were three years late, opening last November.

In typical EU fashion the budget for the project was €850 million on the project. But by the time the building opened its doors the cost had risen to €1.2 billion.

This all took place at a time when ECB officials were driving through austerity in eurozone. The cost of each workstation in the new building is almost €500,000.

Even worse, the towers do not have enough space to house all of the euro’s central bank’s staff. The crisis has seen the ECB’s role and staffing balloon.

Up on the 43rd floor, under a glass dome, 500 feet in the air, the ECB’s governing council meets. As Der Spiegel put it: "It's the kind of space that might accommodate a global government in a science fiction film."

[Digga]

Timmy40 said:

The FTSE isn't exactly stratospheric. It's only really the US. As for the upside, I think it's more the case of given how catastrophic the downside threatened to be it's amazing how little unemployment/repossesions happened.

All this bleating on about the cost of living crises, I'd rather cope with a real terms reduction in spending power of 15% over several years ( with time to adjust ) than an immediate 100% reduction in spending power as a result of being unemployed.

We have a zombie economy. I reckon there are still a lot of people sitting on upside-down on mortgages. Talking to friends in banking, new small businesses formation has been very poor - that's the underpinning of any economy and is a worry.

Post crunch, a lot more of the employment in non-permanent.

[Timmy40]

Digga said:

Timmy40 said:

The FTSE isn't exactly stratospheric. It's only really the US. As for the upside, I think it's more the case of given how catastrophic the downside threatened to be it's amazing how little unemployment/repossesions happened.

All this bleating on about the cost of living crises, I'd rather cope with a real terms reduction in spending power of 15% over several years ( with time to adjust ) than an immediate 100% reduction in spending power as a result of being unemployed.

We have a zombie economy. I reckon there are still a lot of people sitting on upside-down on mortgages. Talking to friends in banking, new small businesses formation has been very poor - that's the underpinning of any economy and is a worry.

Post crunch, a lot more of the employment in non-permanent.

It really doesn't feel like that at all to me. There are not huge rafts of negative equity, the economy is growing well relative to our peers and for a mature economy, and we have a flexible labour market which means, as in the US, employers can take the risk early in a recovery of hiring in a way they can't in Europe.

It's the British disease again, we've actually been hugely sucessful and can't bring ourselves to accept it. We hate winning.

[Digga]

Timmy40 said:

It really doesn't feel like that at all to me. There are not huge rafts of negative equity, the economy is growing well relative to our peers and for a mature economy, and we have a flexible labour market which means, as in the US, employers can take the risk early in a recovery of hiring in a way they can't in Europe.

I think the NE is generally well hidden and is manifesting itself in many ways - householders taking root, or otherwise becoming reluctant but foreced BTLers.

The labour market is not flexible in the way the US market is, because we're wedded to EU stupidity and cloud-cuckoo socialism. What we're seeing are merely creative symptoms of that - businesses (especially big, well-resourced ones) flexing legal and HR muscles to overcome the issue.

Timmy40 said:

It's the British disease again, we've actually been hugely sucessful and can't bring ourselves to accept it. We hate winning.

We'll have to agree to disagree, although only in part, because post 2013 things are actually pretty good. But most new businesses did not need capital to start - looked at with a jaundiced eye that says they either didn't want to ask for or didn't get any capital.

Again, I must stress that I am not speaking from the perspective that things are bad professionally or personally, but more looking around at others.

[Huntsman]

QE is 1.1tn.

[YankeePorker]

Well judging from the asset price bubble created in the US stock markets by the Fed's QE programs, this must mean that it's time to buy Eurozone equities, sit back and watch their PE ratios go through the roof as the markets climb despite poor company returns. I missed the equities boat here in the US, can I rely on the same pattern to appear in the Eurozone?

[London424]

YankeePorker said:

Well judging from the asset price bubble created in the US stock markets by the Fed's QE programs, this must mean that it's time to buy Eurozone equities, sit back and watch their PE ratios go through the roof as the markets climb despite poor company returns. I missed the equities boat here in the US, can I rely on the same pattern to appear in the Eurozone?

I was asking that very same question to a colleague today...and which market do you pick?

[YankeePorker]

London424 said:

I was asking that very same question to a colleague today...and which market do you pick?

Well if they're diluting currency and driving the € down, the biggest winners will have to be German companies who already have respected products and will be able to price them competitively. DAX?

I don't see that it'll help the Med economies much as much of their industry has already headed down the toilet.

[Mermaid]

London424 said:

YankeePorker said:

Well judging from the asset price bubble created in the US stock markets by the Fed's QE programs, this must mean that it's time to buy Eurozone equities, sit back and watch their PE ratios go through the roof as the markets climb despite poor company returns. I missed the equities boat here in the US, can I rely on the same pattern to appear in the Eurozone?

I was asking that very same question to a colleague today...and which market do you pick?

Well short interest has dwindled for sure

[Timmy40]

YankeePorker said:

London424 said:

I was asking that very same question to a colleague today...and which market do you pick?

Well if they're diluting currency and driving the € down, the biggest winners will have to be German companies who already have respected products and will be able to price them competitively. DAX?

I don't see that it'll help the Med economies much as much of their industry has already headed down the toilet.

Of course as a $ based investor buying Euro stocks you will see any index gains tempered by the Euro going down the toilet.

[YankeePorker]

Timmy40 said:

Of course as a $ based investor buying Euro stocks you will see any index gains tempered by the Euro going down the toilet.

I have assets in Europe so would not have to transfer money across from the US. Am trying to find the best online brokers to use, as my old brokers in France are hot on the French transaction tax and this will only get worse as the socialists try to hobble anyone who dares to try and make money!

Do the UK brokers have € based accounts so that I don't have to lose money changing to sterling?

[anonymous-user]

YankeePorker said:

Do the UK brokers have € based accounts so that I don't have to lose money changing to sterling?

IME hands down the best broker for international trading is Interactive Brokers. Accounts are not 'based' in any currency as such because you can fund them and withdraw in any currency and or exchange internally at interbank rates (ie I'm lookng at EURUSD now and its 1.14195 1.1420)... Right now my account has funds in usd, gbp and jpy. Other fees are dirt cheap too, on the flip side it's very much for experienced/semi professional traders, ie. you fvck up and wipe out your account buying 1000 times more than you thought... tough, no one is going to hold your hand. Easily done because they are also the cheapest broker for futures and options. Good luck!

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 23 January 14:22

[Driller]

YankeePorker said:

as the socialists try to hobble anyone who dares to try and make money!

Whilst coming from millionaire families and earning massive amounts of cash from fingers in pies.

Are you listening Marahole Tourraine?

[longblackcoat]

Just to bring some reality back to the thread, it's four and a half years (pretty much to the day) since this thread opened. Fair to say that the end is not nigh for the Euro. Still tricky, certainly, but it's clearly weathered the storm.

[Digga]

So far it has yes, but it would require a fairly optimistic view not to suspect that a good many fundamental issues have merely been kicked down the road. Yesterday's bout of SuperMario being just one long awaited denouement in a whole series. For example, we could yet see a Grexit.

[Andy Zarse]

longblackcoat said:

Just to bring some reality back to the thread, it's four and a half years (pretty much to the day) since this thread opened. Fair to say that the end is not nigh for the Euro. Still tricky, certainly, but it's clearly weathered the storm.

Until Greece gets the bullet in a week or two. At that point, the Euro ceases to become "irreversible" and you lose.

[Steffan]

Driller said:

YankeePorker said:

as the socialists try to hobble anyone who dares to try and make money!

Whilst coming from millionaire families and earning massive amounts of cash from fingers in pies.

Are you listening Marahole Tourraine?

Morning Driller, a very fair representation of modern politics in the UK if I may say so. Pity is I cannot see any real changes as yet!

On the matter of changes the ECB And Draghi have stated ther intentions and set out the money printing promised some time ago. Delayed far too long IMO and therefore very probably going to prove inadequate and ineffective in resolving any of the real issues facing the EU in ths self made economic mess.

There are a whole seres of questions about to arise within the EU. Greece seems likely to elect a Parliament whose stated intentions are to end austerity. Will they actually do so and will the politicians actually keep their promises? I doubt if Greece will exit as yet but quite how the EU can avoid this is a moot point IMO, if any real value is to be held in the devices the EU are using to prop up the failing states.

Then there are the forthcoming elections in a number of EU states including the UK. Here again there coud be massive consequences if a substantial,number of UKIP MP's are actually elected. My prediction is that if anything more than 20 are actually elected, there will be fundamental changes in the attitude and approach of the other parties.

Then there is the Referendum Question post whoever wins the UK election. One way of another I do think that the UK is going to get a referendum on Europe and I think the probability is that as the UKIP star rises there will be increasing unhappiness in the UK to maintain the political status quo.

Politically this must be a very interesting election I think. With any luck the unelectable backstabbing, rich mans son, idiot In charge of the labour party will demonstarate his incompetence by not winning the next election. If the does win God help us because financial suicide will be upon us. Time will tell.
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