Tag: Covid-19

Brazil is full of opportunities…if you ignore the populist rhetoric that will accompany the October 2022 elections.

If governments cannot avoid stoking further worry and sidestep validating conspiracy theories while also showing empathy and concern for its citizens, then vaccine rollout, which clearly is an issue of both an individual’s perspective on the vaccine’s necessity and its safety, will remain in doubt and the economic fall-out will accordingly be palpable in some parts of Europe…

Oil recently touched above $70 and continues to hover above $60 today. The uptick is a welcome breath of fresh air into the Middle East (financial) ecosystem. The new cash inflow is and will continue to allow the regional states to underwrite new financing in their banking sectors and evade the 2009-esque fallout as banks today effectively bridge finance regional corporates to 2022 (…or potentially 2023)…

Latin America remains significantly impacted by the pandemic with three of its largest economies—Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina—among the world’s biggest covid-19 hotspots. And, as these country’s leaders struggle to stave off economic and health catastrophe one after another, (distressed) investors will find additional opportunity to allocate capital…

Covid-19 is the introduction and closing to many personal and business conversations these days. It is also the starting point for most economic discussions across the globe. Discussions on the African continent are no different. But, in the context of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the Covid-19 pandemic may be a distraction from the realities of deeper economic problems…

As the assembly to write a new Chilean constitution is elected and Chileans ponder the new social contract for the country, many in the socialist camp should be more honest with their followers: Chile cannot be a Latin American version of a Nordic country, but it can be a better version of itself…

France’s discussion on the transformation of state loans to grants signifies a greater problem for European economies. Many governments underwrote their economies with increased liquidity either through loans or deferment of debt. But the wall of insolvency cannot be avoided…

Lebanon has long swept its challenges under the rug and celebrated its successes. But the explosion back on August 4th in the port area of Beirut—the capital of Lebanon—, in a figurative and physical sense, unveiled a tomb of hidden treasures and misfortunes of years past. Yet the tragedy of the blast was it not only took so many lives, but its revelations of treasures and misfortunes were not exactly new…

The distribution of vaccines is changing the economic outlook in 2021 with most politicians and investors forecasting a continued recovery. Yet the political and economic risks that preceded the covid-19 pandemic remain alongside the lockdown measures necessary to combat the virus. The year will be turbulent for some countries as public confidence and investor sentiment vacillates with optimism and skepticism on vaccine acceptance rates and economic output numbers. Several countries are likely to be bellwethers for the markets, or at least, provide some directional insight on the global economy’s recovery…

As the second wave of cases hits Europe, including Italy, there is not much convincing required on the seriousness of the virus. The same cannot be said about the growing challenges in the Italian economy. Debt is flowing into an economy that already has its share of bad loans in the financial ecosystem but there is little concern. It is the covid-19 pandemic thus why worry about a European financial crisis, right?