Media and LatAm Navel Gaze: July 18, 2017
Crisis Out of Control: Funny how those emails get you every time. But this time, Don Jr now seems fully exposed in his little – but growing in numbers – Moscow meeting by the Hudson with a Kremlin-linked lawyer (probs the most common moniker for Natalia Veselnitskaya) to get dirt on Hillary (also “emailed harmed”). Few sympathizers here with even the Trump-leaning New York Post calling No. 1 son an “idiot” as this scandal is expected to last a very long time and cast of characters now doubt grew from a core now that includes – get ready – a “bozo British publicist,” Russian pop singer and Jared.
Elsewhere:
- Trump met with French President Macron in Paris in full Bastille splendor amid reports that the French leader may have melted Trump a bit on his Paris Accord stance;
- Mosul fell;
- JP Morgan sees record profits and its stock slip (meh forecast); same for other big banks;
- Stock gauges also saw records with the Dow up another 1 percent on the week to end Friday at 21,637;
- Goldman Sachs “relaxed” its dress code for tech works – which surprisingly is 25 percent of its workforce -- to help recruitment (so no your cufflinks don’t need cufflinks);
- Facebook messenger is now taking ads;
- The Chicago Sun-Times has a new owner, sidestepping a purchase by its cross-town rival Tronc for control by a group that includes a labor organization;
- CBS and BBC are joining forces to extend global coverage;
- Time Inc. is rebranding and may call itself Life; and
- Bey IGed her birth announcement and the world stopped a bit.
LatAm Gaze
- The province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, issued a €500M bond with a maturity of five and a half years. The bond will repay the capital in a single installment at maturity (January 2023), with a yield of 5.5% (coupon of 5.375 %) and annual interest payments. The placement was carried out by banks HSBC, Santander and Deutsche Bank.
- Former Brazilian president Lula da Silva responded boldly to the 9.5 year prison sentence he was given this week on bribery charges related to a luxury property in Brazil. His legal counsel is exploring ways where he could still run for president in 2018 by appealing and extending the case.
- Chile's economy remains sluggish, having expanded by 1.3% in May, which was almost 100 basis points below consensus. According to the BCI Estudios Latin America Report, Chile will be the second slowest growing country in Latin America. This week Standard & Poor’s (S&P), cut Chile's credit rating to A+ from AA- due to a prolonged period of low economic growth.
- US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry visited Mexico's Pedro Joaquin Coldwell, head of the SENER, as well as President Enrique Peña Nieto and politician Joaquín Coldwell. Mr. Perry agreed to work on strategic issues such as trade, investment and reliability of electrical systems, including accelerating the processing of permits for cross-border infrastructure that are clearly facilitators of energy trade.
- In Peru, the Central Reserve Bank (BCR) lowered its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 3.75%.
- End of Week Market Updates
- Merval (Argentina): -0.81%
- Bovespa (Brazil): +5.00%
- IPSA (Chile): + 3.00%
- IGBC (Colombia): + 1.20%
- IPC (Mexico): + 2.20%
- BVL (Peru): + 2.10%
