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Citi forecasts Greek devastation, unstoppable debt spirals in Italy and Portugal

  
Analysis, Education
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If Citigroup is right, the slight rebound in Europe over the summer will not be enough to stop Club Med going from bad to worse, with a string of soft defaults/restructurings.

I pass their latest forecasts on to readers. I do not endorse them.

Italy will bounce along in near-permanent recession with growth of 0.1pc in 2014, zero in 2015, and 0.2pc in 2016. The debt will punch above 140pc of GDP, beyond the point of no return for a country with no economic growth or sovereign currency.

“We do not expect the public debt ratio will enter a downtrend in coming years, and we suspect that some form of debt restructuring (maturity lengthening and/or coupon reductions) may be likely eventually,” said the bank.

Portugal is in an even worse state, with growth of: 0.6pc, 0.0pc, 1.0pc, over the next three years, with debt hitting 149pc of GDP by 2015, and unemployment rising again to 18.3pc:

Given the fiscal tightening still to come, ongoing private deleveraging and ensuing poor nominal GDP growth prospects, doubts still exist about the sustainability of the Portuguese public debt in our view.”
A second full bail-out programme remains a clear risk in the event of market sentiment deteriorating. In any case, we think a Greek-style public debt restructuring unlikely in the near future, but a restructuring of some government contingent liabilities is still possible. (more…)

Advantages & Disadvantages of EBITDA

  
Analysis, Education
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The Advantages of EBITDA

Although there is no silver bullet metric in financial statement analysis, nevertheless there are numerous benefits to using EBITDA. Here are a few:

  • Operational Comparability:  As implied above, EBITDA allows comparability across a wide swath of companies. Accounting standards provide leniency in the application of financial statements, therefore using EBITDA allows apples-to-apples comparisons and relieves accounting discrepancies on items such as depreciation, tax rates, and financing choice.
  • Cash Flow Proxy:Since the income statement traditionally is the financial statement of choice, EBITDA can be easily derived from this statement and provides a simple proxy for cash generation in the absence of other data.
  • Debt Coverage Ratios:In many lender contracts, certain debt provisions require specific levels of income cushion above the required interest expense payments. Evaluating EBITDA coverage ratios across companies assists analysts in determining which businesses are more likely to default on their debt obligations.

The Disadvantages of EBITDA (more…)

18 Signs That The Global Economic Crisis Is Accelerating As We Enter H2 2014

  
Analysis, Education
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A lot of people that I talk to these days want to know “when things are going to start happening”.  Well, there are certainly some perilous times on the horizon, but all you have to do is open up your eyes and look to see the global economic crisis unfolding.  As you will see below, even central bankers are issuing frightening warnings about “dangerous new asset bubbles” and even the World Bank is declaring that “now is the time to prepare” for the next crisis.  Most Americans tend to only care about what is happening in the United States, but the truth is that serious economic trouble is erupting in South America, all across Europe and in Asian powerhouses such as China and Japan.  And the endless conflicts in the Middle East could erupt into a major regional war at just about any time.  We live in a world that is becoming increasingly unstable, and people need to understand that the period of relative stability that we are enjoying right now is extremely vulnerable and will not last long.

The following are 18 signs that the global economic crisis is accelerating as we enter the last half of 2014…

#1 The Bank for International Settlements has issued a new report which warns that “dangerous new asset bubbles” are forming which could potentially lead to another major financial crisis.  Do the central bankers know something that we don’t, or are they just trying to place the blame on someone else for the giant mess that they have created?

#2 Argentina has missed a $539 million debt payment and is on the verge of its second major debt default in 13 years.

#3 Bulgaria is desperately trying to calm down a massive run on the banks that threatens of spiral out of control.

#4 Last month, household loans in the eurozone declined at the fastest rate ever recorded.  Why are European banks holding on to their money so tightly right now?

#5 The number of unemployed jobseekers in France has just soared to another brand new record high. (more…)

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