The threat of a US tariff on Mexico’s tomato exports of 17% has been lifted. In the 1980s every US citizen consumed 5.5KG of tomatoes annually; that has now increased to 10KG. So a big deal for US consumers and a very big deal for Mexican tomato growers. Caramba!
This is the name given to securities backed not only with mortgages but with the guarantee of the issuer and as such are considered low risk. Berlin Hyp have issued a EUR 1Billion security yielding minus 0.59% which is the lowest rate yet and another tale in the negative interest rate saga that we have been describing in the past few weeks. So not such a stretch to being paid to borrow money to finance property and definitely expect cheaper mortgage rate offers in the next few months.
Following the piece on Texas, we have been asked to write about California which was claimed by Spain in the 1600s and named after an Amazon queen in a land named Califia from a novel . With no irrigation it was not a great place to live and work but things started changing when a revolution transferred ownership to Mexico in 1821 and then big time with the discovery of gold in 1849. Suddenly California became a sought after territory and was taken over by the USA following their victory in the American Mexican War in 1848 and was duly irrigated and settled. From a population in the 1820s of less than 20,000 California grew to 400,000 in the 1840s and today…nearly 40 million. California is now the 5th largest world economy with a $3 trillion gross state product larger than the UK but smaller than Germany.
Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder
Texas, USA The third largest citrus state in the USA after California and Florida is Texas. Currently the citrus crop is under threat in Texas due to chronic water shortages owing to a long running dispute with Mexico over delivery under a 1944 treaty whereby Mexico is supposed to deliver “1.75 million acre feet of […]
Parity As we brought to you earlier this week, there is an increasing chatter in the market about whether EURUSD has the momentum to challenge parity once again. At face value, of course, this would create a meaningful value change in the world’s foremost currency pair which has already seen a significant exodus of value […]
US Dollar Surging on a strong US economy together with further geopolitical tensions in the past week, USD is at its strongest versus EUR this year and came within a whisker of breaking through 1.06 in yesterday’s trading. Against the Japanese Yen USD was 154.55 which caused Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki to break cover […]