Thursday, 13 April 2023

Russia's economy continues to reel as energy revenue and the ruble weaken

  The country's energy revenues tumbled 45% year over year to $19.6 billion as crude prices declined and gas exports sank ...


Phil Rosen
·2 min read
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin.Mikhail Klimentyev/AP

  • Russia's oil and gas revenue tumbled by 45% in the first three months of 2023 amid sanctions.

  • Meanwhile, the ruble is coming off its worst week against the dollar in a year.

  • A recent paper said Russia's recession in 2022 was actually twice as bad as official data implied.

As Moscow navigates its second year of its war on Ukraine, the Russian economy continues to stumble with plunging oil and gas export revenues and a weakening currency.

Through the first quarter of 2023, the country's energy revenues tumbled 45% year over year to $19.6 billion as crude prices declined and gas exports sank.

Russia is still shipping out crude and fuel products, but the data suggest the price cap imposed by the US and its allies is having the intended dual-effect of curtailing revenue while keeping products flowing through the market.

Experts previously forecasted that sanctions targeting Russian energy wouldn't spur serious repercussions in overall production volume. Other nations including China and India could still buoy demand, analysts said, and Russian supplies could find a way bypass restrictions and still end up in Europe.

Yet the nation's seaborne exports collapsed in the first week of April, with Bloomberg data showing flows from Russian ports dropped by 1.24 million barrels a day — the steepest weekly decline since mid-December.

Alongside the drop in energy revenue, spending surged 34% to $99 billion as the costs to wage war on Ukraine pile up. That led to a $29 billion first-quarter budget deficit, reversing sharply from a year-ago surplus of $14 billion.

Meanwhile, the ruble is coming off its worst week against the dollar since April 2022, falling more than 5% by Friday.

The deterioration at the start of 2023 follows indications that Russia's recession in 2022 was much worse than official data showed.

Stripping away military spending from GDP figures, the country saw a downturn twice as bad as domestic figures imply, wrote Adrian Schmith and Hanna Sakhno a paper for the Centre for Economic Policy and Research in February.

"[The data] currently points to a further loss of momentum driven by stagnating real estate prices and lower business activity in recent months, which is not yet fully reflected in the official data releases," the authors wrote.

That adds to bleak views about the Russian economy as war and sanctions weigh on its long-term prospects.

Economist Konstantin Sonin said Russia faces the same fate of the Soviet Union.

"Everything that is happening makes the Russian economy more primitive, more backwards," he told Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta. "This makes backwardness and primitivism more persistent."

Read the original article on Business Insider

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russias-economy-continues-reel-energy-211945356.html

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Wednesday, 5 April 2023

The time of ‘peak SNP’ is almost over - Chopper's Politics

5th April 2023


By Christopher 'Chopper' Hope
ASSOCIATE EDITOR (POLITICS)

The Telegraph


Afternoon,

Today is “law and order day” in politics - just not in the normal way.

Just as Britons were waking up to the sight of Donald Trump being charged with 34 offences in the USA, officers from Police Scotland were raiding the home of Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell following an investigation into the SNP’s finances.

Politics is getting wilder and wilder. It used to be just the fringe parties who would try to get the police involved in their affairs, a sign I always thought of their immaturity. But it is startling to see police involved in the workings of the SNP and Republican Party.

The raids in Scotland are of a different magnitude to the Metropolitan Police questionnaires and the “speeding fine”- type sanctions handed out to Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak over “partygate” breaches of lockdown rules.

At the time of writing, Murrell’s Glasgow home had been sealed off by detectives while police have also carried out a search at the SNP’s headquarters in Edinburgh.

The BBC reported that there are “10 uniformed officers stationed outside the former first minister’s home, alongside one police vehicle and an incident tent in the front garden”.

Police have been investigating the SNP’s finances after receiving complaints about how more than £600,000 of donations were used. Sturgeon as leader had insisted that she was “not concerned” about the party’s finances.

The political damage of today’s events to new SNP leader Humza Yousaf, who this time last week was taking over as First Minister, and the Scottish government is only just registering.

The question now is who will benefit? A poll in Scotland yesterday found that it is Labour and the Liberal Democrats, rather than the Conservatives, who had picked up support from the unedifying attacks by the candidates on each other in the SNP leadership campaign.

The poll from Redfield and Wilton found SNP support has slipped three per cent to 36 per cent, while Labour were up two per cent to 31 per cent. The Liberal Democrats up four per cent to 10 per cent.

The Tories were down three per cent to 19 per cent. Wait until today’s events filter through to the polls.

The police investigation will take its course over the next few months. But certainly it seems to me that the time of “peak SNP” is well and truly receding in the rear view mirror.

Labour and to a lesser extent the Tories will be licking their lips as they eye up the party’s seats at next year’s general election, as Labour’s Scottish leader Anas Sarwar told me on my podcast last week.

There will be everything to play for.

Politics has never felt more unpredictable. And the dull leaders in charge of the main UK parties - Sir Keir Starmer, Sir Ed Davey and to a lesser extent, Rishi Sunak - will benefit.

Cheerio!

Chopper


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Monday, 3 April 2023

Scotland's financial projections have 'deteriorated significantly' due to changes in oil and gas prices - IFS

 Scotland’s financial deficit could be around £1,300 per person higher than the UK due to significant deteriorations in its fiscal outlook due to the impact of falling oil and gas prices, a think tank has warned.

Story by Conor Matchett

3 April 2023


Scotland's financial projections have 'deteriorated significantly' due to changes in oil and gas prices - IFS© The oil platform Stena Spey amongst other rigs in the Cromarty Firth near Invergordon in the Highlands of Scotland.

Lower prices, while good news as a whole, has led to Scotland’s financial projections having “deteriorated significantly”, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said.

This means that the November forecasts where the underlying budget deficit of Scotland for the 2023/25 financial year appeared to be lower than the rest of the UK had reversed.

Critics said the implications were “very concerning” and underlined how the Scottish Government had allegedly “mismanaged” the economy.

The latest forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) predict the UK’s oil and gas revenues will hit £11 billion in 2022/23 and just over £10 billion the following financial year, a marked decrease from its forecast last November which expected revenues to reach £15 billion then almost £21 billion respectively.

The IFS said this has a particularly detrimental impact in Scotland since most of the UK’s oil and gas revenues are generated from activity in Scottish waters.

The think tank said November’s forecasts implied Scotland’s underlying budget deficit for 2023/24 might be lower than that of the UK as a whole for the first time in more than a decade but the latest forecasts suggest Scotland’s deficit could be close to £1,300 higher per person than that of the UK as a whole.

David Phillips, IFS associate director said: “The fall in forecast oil, and particularly gas, prices since last autumn is welcome news for households, business and the public finances of the UK as a whole.

“However, the fact that the vast majority of the UK’s oil and gas revenues are from taxing activities in Scottish waters means that Scotland’s underlying public finances will improve by a lot less in the coming year than previously expected: lower prices mean lower revenues.

“As a result, the underlying Scottish budget deficit now looks set to remain significantly higher than that of the UK as a whole this year and next, in contrast to what we thought last autumn.

“This highlights just how significant volatile oil and gas revenues are in a Scottish context.

“In addition, this gap between Scotland’s deficit and that of the rest of the UK will grow further in the longer term as oil and gas production in the North Sea slowly declines, unless new revenue-rich sources of economic growth for Scotland can be found.”

Finance spokesperson for the Scottish Conservatives, Liz Smith, said the figures were “very concerning”.

She said: “The SNP Government has presided over more sluggish growth, and a higher fiscal deficit, than the rest of the UK for a decade. That position will only get worse with a reduction in revenue from the oil and gas sector – to which the SNP and their Green coalition partners have shown such hostility.

“The latest forecasts underline just how woefully they have mismanaged the Scottish economy and blow a hole in their budget for the coming year. Scotland desperately needs economic growth, but that’s been neglected while the Nationalists pursue their constitutional obsession.

“Now our fiscal deficit is set to be worse than the rest of the UK’s by around £1,300 per person – a shocking indictment of the SNP’s fiscal ineptitude.”

Scottish Labour’s Colin Smyth said the SNP had failed to make Scotland’s energy resources “work for our economy”.

He said: “Scotland’s potential for renewable energy still sits untapped. Too often the benefits in the sector go straight to companies owned overseas and we have little to show by way of supply chain jobs.

"To truly unleash our energy potential, we need a publicly owned, clean energy company that will properly invest in renewables and deliver the jobs in Scotland. Only Labour can deliver this and put the profits back in the pockets of ordinary Scots."

The Scottish Government has been contacted for comment.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/scotland-s-financial-projections-have-deteriorated-significantly-due-to-changes-in-oil-and-gas-prices-ifs/ar-AA19qceK


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Saturday, 25 March 2023

Panic Around Deutsche Bank Being The 'Next Credit Suisse' Spreads

 As the European banking crisis deepens, analysts are warning against drawing too many comparisons.

The fall of 167-year-old Credit Suisse  (CSGKF) , which UBS  (UBS) - Get Free Report committed to acquire on March 19, has thrown the European banking world in crisis.

Shares of Stoxx Europe 600, which is made up of the 600 biggest banks in Europe, are down 4% from a month ago while German giant Deutsche Bank  (DB) - Get Free Report's stock has been falling for three consecutive days. At one point on March 23, shares plunged by nearly 15% as the cost to insure it against a potential default spiked.

DON'T MISS: Deutsche Bank Shares Are on the Ropes: Here's What the Charts Tell Us

Credit Suisse Lead JS 100322

Here's Why Deutsche Bank Shares Came Tumbling Down

Over the last few years, Deutsche Bank in particular has been through a lot of tumult. While it brought in two years of consecutive profits and 5.7 billion euros ($6.1 billion) in 2022, the eighth-largest bank in Europe had earlier undergone a series of major restructurings under chief executive Christian Sewing.

These include, in 2019, exiting the equities sales and trading business and focusing on German banking as well as cutting 18,000 jobs in 2022.

But despite the strong string of recent profits, panic around the state of European banks and the rise in the cost of credit default swaps has been rattling investors. On March 23, the cost of insuring five-year credit default swaps jumped from 142 to 173 basis points.

But even amid worries that a fate similar to Credit Suisse could spill over into other large banks, analysts are warning against drawing too many comparisons.

Don't Compare Credit Suisse To Other Banking Giants, Analysts Say

"There is no evidence of a flight of depositors at Deutsche, the factor that really sealed Credit Suisse's fate," Nils Pratley wrote for The Guardian. "Nor, as far as we know, is the European Central Bank in a flap about Deutsche in the way that Swiss authorities were when they advanced a 50 billion Swiss franc ($54.34 USD) borrowing facility to Credit Suisse."

The biggest difference between Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse is, according to a note that JP Morgan Chase  (JPM) - Get Free Report analysts sent to its clients, that Deutsche Bank was able to complete its restructuring and regain trust long before the market shifted and became more fearful. A "fresh and intense focus on liquidity risk" sealed the deal for Credit Suisse.

"Where Deutsche's governance fumbles could not incrementally 'cost' the bank anything in franchise loss, Credit Suisse's were immediately punished with investor outflows in the Wealth Management division, causing what should have been seen as the bank's 'crown jewel' to themselves deepen the bank’s P&L losses," the analysts write.

This doesn't mean that shares of Deutsche Bank and many other banks will not flounder for a while as the wider market uncertainty around the string of shutdowns continues. But for now, the majority opinion is that investors may be feeding off of each other's panic that will slowly peter out.

"Traders are acting like traders — sell first and ask questions later," Bruce Kamich writes for TheStreet's RealMoney. "Shares of DB are likely to stay under selling pressure."

https://www.thestreet.com/banking/is-deutsche-bank-the-next-credit-suisse


Others:


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