Last week Amazon.com Inc. came to the market with a USD16bn multi-tranche bond deal; proceeds of which are said to be used to fund the USD13.7bn Whole Foods Market Inc acquisition. Demand came in at USD 48bn (3x oversubscribed), just shy of Belarus’ nominal GDP! Appetite for such a deal was no surprise to the market as Amazon is afterall a household name and its stock is worth five times as much as it was just over 5 years ago; while the S&P has barely doubled. However, despite the apparent appeal of lending to the e-commerce giant, the bonds did not make it to our portfolios due to the relative unattractiveness at issue.

Fitch recently lowered its long-term foreign currency rating for the Republic of Chile by one notch to A from A+ and adjusted the outlook to stable from negative. The move reflects a ‘prolonged period of economic weakness and lower copper prices, which are contributing to a sustained deterioration in the sovereign balance sheet.’  They note ‘per-capita income convergence’ with its A-rated peers has weakened and while government debt to GDP remains below the A median it has risen from the low levels that underpinned the A+ rating.  Fiscal policy remains prudent as spending has been pre-financed with tax increases but weaker copper revenues have eroded some of the fiscal space.

There are certainly reasons to be appreciative of being British today; from those on Portsmouth dockside welcoming home the HMS Queen Elizabeth Carrier to those wading through the latest data from the ONS showing, for instance, that employment rate (75.1%) has hit its highest on record and unemployment (4.4%) is at its lowest in 42 years. But less so in regards to the first in a series of detailed Brexit position papers setting out the ‘Government’s vision… to build a new, deep and special partnership with the European Union’. Guy Verhofstadt, former Belgian MP, current MEP, EU Brexit negotiator and author of ‘Europe's Last Chance’, sums up the central stance of the papers as ‘a fantasy’.