Don't feign surprise when you miss the obvious
GlobalCapital, is part of the Delinian Group, DELINIAN (GLOBALCAPITAL) LIMITED, 4 Bouverie Street, London, EC4Y 8AX, Registered in England & Wales, Company number 15236213
Copyright © DELINIAN (GLOBALCAPITAL) LIMITED and its affiliated companies 2024

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement
People and MarketsComment

Don't feign surprise when you miss the obvious

Italy_Fotolia_230x150

Sometimes, investors get hit by political events that come out of nowhere. Other times, they walk straight into an oncoming freight train, even though it's blowing its horn at top volume.

That is what holders of Italian and Turkish securities have done in the past week.

Both asset classes have sold off sharply after governments (or in Italy's case, a potential government) ranted alarmingly about policy. It is hard to see why. These ideas, which the market sees as scary, are exactly what the politicians in question have said all along.

Investors spend hours looking for clues, scrutinising the minutiae of monetary policy announcements and corporate statements for hints on future performance, but sometimes seem completely blind to cold, hard statements of fact. 

In Italy, leaked documents emanating from coalition discussions between the Five Star Movement and Northern League showed that where these former enemies found common ground was Euroscepticism and economic fantasy. Who knew?

Asking the European Central Bank to write off €250bn of Italian debt and seeking a way out of the euro are standard fare for these populists. Shock, horror: having won the election, they now want to implement their ideas.

In Turkey, president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has vaunted his lust for greater control over the central bank, and made low interest rates a central tenet of his presidency. 

Investors have spent years worrying about it, but after bouts of volatility, Turkish asset prices have generally recovered their losses. This week, he said on television that he planned to guide the central bank more closely and prices fell out of bed.

Investors may not like what's happened, but they had better not say they didn't see it coming.

Gift this article