Credit Suisse

Argentinian voters blew their country’s presidential race wide open on October 25 with an unexpectedly close vote that will force the country’s first-ever runoff election on November 22. But the victor of that contest will receive a dubious prize: Argentina’s next president will have to deal with a stalled economy, dwindling foreign exchange reserves, an overvalued currency, and a large budget gap.   Polls conducted just before the recent vote suggested that Daniel Scioli, who served...

How wealthy has China become? At last count, the country accounted for a full 8 percent of all global ultra-high net worth investors—those worth more than $50 million. What will those UHNWIs do with that newfound wealth? That’s an important question, because household wealth is a key driver of consumers’ consumption and investment decisions as well as entrepreneurial activity, and that holds true whether one is Chinese, American, or otherwise.   China and the United States led the...

Just as a fierce storm can change the shape of a shoreline, liquidity has drained away from the post-crisis financial markets, creating new and unfamiliar sandbars where investors can wind up shipwrecked if they’re not careful. To navigate the newly parched market, Credit Suisse’s Private Banking and Wealth Management division says that investors must not only pay much closer attention to liquidity risks in their portfolios, but also learn to use illiquidity to their advantage.   The...

On October 5, after 10 years of negotiations, 12 Pacific Rim countries that account for a combined 40 percent of global GDP agreed to a sweeping trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The final text of the agreement isn’t public yet, but it appears that it would eliminate a large number of tariffs on goods and services, require state-owned enterprises to obey international trade laws, set stricter environmental and labor standards, and establish international tribunals to...

The third quarter wasn’t kind to U.S. stocks. The S&P 500 fell 6.4 percent, with stocks battered by everything from fears over China’s growth slowdown and financial market collapse to uncertainty about Federal Reserve policy and the Volkswagen emissions scandal. In June, the consensus view on third-quarter earnings was a 1 percent decline. Heading into earnings season, that figure has been revised downward to a 5 percent decrease. With the fourth quarter underway, none of the issues that...

Given that consumer prices have either moved lower or essentially stayed put in the developed world for much of the past year, the word inflation does feel a little strange on the tongue. U.S. consumer prices declined through the 12 months ended in May and have pretty much flatlined since, while Japanese inflation has stayed under 1 percent all year. After falling for four consecutive months, starting in December 2014, European consumer prices have stayed where they are as well. But Credit...

Energy master limited partnerships, most of which are in the business of storing and transporting oil and natural gas, have had a rough time of it since energy prices started falling in mid-2014. The Alerian MLP index has fallen 38 percent since its August 2014 peak and is down 27 percent year to date. The 22 percent loss in the third quarter is the worst quarterly decline since the index’s inception in 1998. In September, the asset class was down 15 percent, though it regained all of that...

Globalization has been a fact of life for decades, but how long will it continue in its current form? A new report from the Credit Suisse Research Institute (CSRI) considers three potential futures for our increasingly interconnected world.   The most dramatic (and unlikely) outcome is an outright reversal of current trends, with globalization trumped by nationalism. It’s happened before. It wasn’t that long after the Industrial Revolution ushered in a long wave of globalization in...

Bone china porcelains are as quintessentially British as Marmite breakfast spread. At the end of the 18th century, Englishman Josiah Spode developed a technique to incorporate burned-up animal bones into porcelain, giving the resulting china its signature crisp white hue. More than two centuries later, another young Briton, 28–year-old Richard Brendon, has brought a thoroughly modern perspective to the craft without forgetting its roots. Brendon produces all his bone china in...

It’s like trying to catch a falling barrel: Every time it seems as though crude oil prices might have touched bottom, the bottom moves a little lower. The latest low came on August 24, when the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) plummeted to $38.22, its lowest level since 2009. The price has since risen to around $46 per barrel, but a year ago it was more than twice that, at $93. Brent crude also fell to a six-year low of $42.69 per barrel in late August, and was still trading at $48 a...