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Tuesday, 14 June 2016

Bond marking is defying every comparison, Brexit looms, FTSE 100 companies worried about taxes and terrorism

It’s bonds, bonds, bonds this morning: “Today’s bond market is defying just about every comparison known to man,” writes Bloomberg, with traders never before paying so much for debt with so little return. “This absolutely leaves the markets a lot more vulnerable,” said Torsten Slok, chief international economist at Deutsche Bank. Morgan Stanley says the bond market has nowhere left to go, while Goldman Sachs is looking for benchmark U.S. Treasury yields to rise, according to Bloomberg. Across the pond, economists surveyed by Bloomberg say the German 10-year yield is expected to increase from “record lows.”

We’re closing in on less than 10 days from the Brexit referendum (23 June), ladies and gents. The race between the leave and remain camps appears to be too close to call still, but David Cameron did manage to squeeze in a warning on pensions and health spending after Brexit, the FT (paywall) quotes him as saying on Sunday. Meanwhile, Bloomberg writes that US investors are more worried about Brexit than they are about a June Fed hike or the 2016 election, while the FT’s (paywall) Edward Luce looks at why the Americans are so worried (hint: Donald Trump).

Speaking of Brexit, it’s one of the four things most worrying FTSE 100 companies (after taxes, terrorism, and regulation) according to analysis of their annual reports, the FT (paywall) writes. Tax is of course the biggest worry: “Some firms in the extractives sector, including Fresnillo, are worried about the impact of lower commodity prices on the fiscal positions of the countries they operate in and what this means for tax policies,” said a new report from advisory firm Global Counsel. Egypt was also among several countries posing political risks, including Turkey, Syria, and Iraq.

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