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◆ The new rate cycle begins at last ◆ Can Deutsche Bank avoid being overtaken by UniCredit? ◆ Carmakers in trouble ◆ The DLT help no one wanted

UniCredit’s stealth raid to grab 9% of Commerzbank last week threatens Deutsche Bank’s historic primacy in German banking. What can Deutsche CEO Christian Sewing do about it? We discuss three courses of action — one clearly better than the others.

That’s not the only trouble in Germany: BMW is having to make a €1bn product recall and Volkswagen might have to close factories in Germany. 

This week two other companies in the automotive sector, Daimler Truck and Renault’s RCI Banque, came to the bond market. 

We look at how the market treats borrowers when something is amiss in their sector.

But the reason this week will go down in history is the first Federal Reserve rate cut since the onset of Covid — the true beginning of the new easing cycle. Markets have known it was coming — now the ride has begun, with a 50bp move that has leapfrogged the European Central Bank and Bank of England. We find out how public sector borrowers are handling the new environment.

And there is a dispatch from the blockchain bond market. ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help,’ said the European Union last year — but it hasn’t.