News

With the recent volatility unleashed due to the closure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) operations, we share a series of questions and answers with the information we have so far.   What happened to SVB? On March 8, SVB, based on the U.S. West Coast, announced the need to sell its US$21bn Available for Sale Securities […]

Quarterly reports are nearing completion, with 95% of S&P 500 companies releasing their numbers. Against this background, we summarize the key points the season has left us. On the one hand, earnings per share (EPS) behavior was much weaker sequentially since, in 3Q22, a growth of 4.4% was observed year over year (YoY). At the […]

The official February manufacturing activity (PMI) report in China advanced strongly and remained in the field, indicating expansion (+52.6 points*). This result was better than expected and represented its highest reading since April 2012.  Among the report’s details, the notable rebound in the export orders component stood out, which is particularly interesting because there are […]

The debate in the US Congress on extending the government’s debt ceiling will be the main fiscal issue on the markets’ radar this year. On January 19, the government reached its legal debt limit of US$31.4 trillion (an all-time maximum). Therefore, we share some points that could influence the negotiations throughout this process:   Date […]

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) advanced 0.5% in January, from the 0.1% increase seen in December (the monthly figure for December was revised slightly upwards). As a result, annual inflation stood at 6.4% (vs. +6.5% in December and +6.2% estimated). Core inflation, which excludes the most volatile categories such as food and energy, accelerated by […]

The official January jobs report showed the non-farm payroll increased by 517,000 jobs, well above consensus expectations of 190,000. In addition, the unemployment rate stood at 3.4%, the lowest since the late 1960s, while average weekly hours worked jumped from 34.4 to 34.7 in December. Finally, the JOLTS (job openings) also surprised to the upside, […]

In its first release of the year and in line with expectations, the Fed increased the reference rate by 25bp to a range between 4.5-4.75% (the decision was unanimous), its highest level since October 2007. This decision represented a minor movement compared to the 50bp advance last December and the 4 increases of 75bp implemented […]

Against a backdrop of rapidly rising US interest rates and mounting recession fears, most currencies weakened significantly against the US dollar in 2022. However, the Mexican peso was one of the outliers, appreciating 5% in 2022 and now trading below 19 per US dollar, a level not seen since February 2020, with a 3.6% gain […]

Like every year, Blackstone, one of the largest alternative investments manager with over $951 bn assets under management, published its 38th edition for their Ten Surprises for the year. Blackstone defines a Surprise as an event in which the average professional investor would assign a one-third chance of taking place, but which the asset manager […]

According to the minutes of the December meeting, Fed members confirmed that they are committed to fighting inflation, so they expect to keep interest rates high until more progress is made. In this sense, they expressed the importance of maintaining a sufficiently restrictive policy given that inflation is unacceptably high. In particular, members stressed that […]