Russia and Moskou on the Thames

Vlad Putin is doing it again: a new gambling law banishes Russian casinos. That means 1 bln USD less in tax revenues and the loss of 500.000 jobs. If you want to go for some gambling fun, you take a train to Kaliningrad, the Altai region, Primoriye or the Sea of Azov.
Or you start investing in Russian shares.

The ECB let rates unchanged and the non-farm payrolls were worse than expected in the US.

This one comes from Niall Furguson, author of ‘The Ascent of Money/ A financial History of the World’ commenting on the Sterling and the negative outlook for the AAA status:

"We’re not Iceland or Ireland, but we’re closer to them than we are to the U.S.,”

To compare Ireland with Iceland – although one letter difference – is not funny at all. Anyway: if the pound pops it will be fast and furious as the 5 year sovereign CDS jumped to 81 and the numbers are becoming worse every month

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England rules the waves

The S&P sent out a rating alert for the UK and now all bells are ringing. The UK credit derivatives widened sharply and the pound was hit.
The UK is going from stable to negative for the first time since 1978 and I can assure you: we don’s see any happy faces.
Fitch and Moody’s were already out to affirm the UK’s triple A rating, but the damage is done.
The action of the Big Three is one thing, doing some good analysis is another. There are many rating agencies out there, but only these three are recognised by the FED. And the rest of the world. But they are commercial firms and I can assure you: the limited number of people working on such serious topics is just
a sickening joke.

I like more agencies as Egan-Jones. At least they do some homework. If you go to www.egan-jones.com you’ll find some fine stuff.

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