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Joseph Cotterill

@jsphctrl.ft.com
8.8K followers 237 following 1.4K posts

Emerging Markets correspondent at the Financial Times; sovereign debt thinkfluencer; I like comics

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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 47m
UK Government Investments Ltd, UK Export Finance, and the Department for Business and Trade (et al) are bringing out the big guns though. www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/07921... www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/07038... www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/06014...
find-tender.service.gov.uk
UKGI Financial Times 2026-27 - Find a Tender
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 28/09/2026
I’m… an OpenAI agent
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 28/09/2026
One thing we noticed looking at London house listings (not even flats) lately is a few more so-called 'modern method' (or conditional) auctions. I don't really understand their appeal other than sellers maybe more anxious for a quick sale? www.ft.com/content/f9c1...
ft.com
How London became the property market’s black sheep
Capital’s once-relentless property boom has gone into reverse
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 28/09/2026
South Africa's central bank governor on how the Great Global Bond Sell-Off™ hasn't affected South Africa or other EMs much yet. (Yet.) In part because many were already under the gun in fiscal and monetary terms for years, and had reformed a bit accordingly. www.resbank.co.za/en/home/publ...
Excerpt from a speech given by South African Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago today:
South Africa’s better macro prospects have been important in shielding us from the 2026 global bond repricing. Because our country risk premium has fallen, our longer-term borrowing costs are not rising in line with rich country benchmarks. In fact, yields have been quite contained this year, at around 9% at the longer end of the curve. This is roughly where we were at the end of 2025, and well below earlier levels. By comparison, the US 30-year yield is at its highest since 2007 and Japan’s is at its highest since 1996. We are also seeing that the rand is holding up well, with unusually low volatility.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 25/09/2026
If you've ever followed a big investment in a mine or LNG project in a frontier economy, it's funny how AI investment's impact on the US economy mimics the broad strokes a bit. Imports go up. Inflation goes up. Then people start muttering darkly of ‘social license to operate’ and ‘force majeure’...
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 24/09/2026
You can now pick up the Meta/Blue Owl Project Beignet bonds (secured, rated A+) at a 7.3% yield, or about the same as Mexico’s (unsecured, BBB-rated) US dollar bonds at a similar maturity.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 24/09/2026
The Great Global Bond Sell-Off™ doesn't really include emerging markets so far, at least in their external debt. The yield premium of EM US dollar bonds over Treasury bonds keeps falling, and issuance has stayed pretty strong. www.ft.com/content/e3c7...
ft.com
Emerging markets shrug off Iran war in record foreign borrowing spree
Fallout from conflict, rising interest rates and a strong dollar have not dented investor appetite for EM bonds
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 22/09/2026
Post-Orban Hungary has made its first big step toward joining the euro, with the central bank adopting a lower inflation target that is closer to the ECB (or 2.5% from 2028, down from 3%). Please inform the Roger Scruton fans in your life. www.mnb.hu/en/monetary-...
mnb.hu
Press release by the Monetary Council on the review of the inflation target
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 21/09/2026
It would bring an apparently revolutionary upgrade in Home Office capacity to connect to other parts of government, such as HMRC. Eg at present they don't consider UK job offers or salaries for applicants for spousal visas (only the 'sponsor').
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Patrick Osgood @patrickosgood.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Wife and I are about to cough up her second round of visa and NHS surcharges. £4,000. She works full time, paying into the system twice over. The application process is, once again, extraordinarily demanding and overtly hostile. This must be an extremely stressful burden on lower income households
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 21/09/2026
“The success of the Trump administration’s blockbuster Venezuela oil deal is riding on fields that are aging, degraded or expensive to access... [US] would be taking on enormous environmental liabilities at properties previously operated by China Concord Petroleum“: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Trump's Venezuela Oil Deal Hinges on Decrepit and Distant Fields
The US-backed venture will struggle to reach its production goal, experts say.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 21/09/2026
This but it is actually also happening to emerging markets balance of payments crises when you combine demographics with the new EM orthodoxy. Hundreds of millions of people in India must be younger at this point than the Taper Tantrum (2013) let alone '08-09, etc.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 10/09/2026
Looking forward to the YouTube slop thumbnails of everyone in the discussion looking shocked below "TEA OR COFFEE? THEY DIDN'T KNOW"
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 10/09/2026
Senegal’s total return swap situation continues to go well.
Front page headline of Les Echos, a Senegalese newspaper:

DÉGRADATIONS DE LA NOTE SOUVERAINE DU SÉNÉGAL
LES EFFETS TERRIBLES SUR LES EMPRUNTS TRS
• Une clause, selon le Financial Times, fixe une note minimale de CCC+ chez S&P ou Caa1 chez Moody's
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& First Abu Dhabi Bank peut réclamer le paiement des 300 millions d'euros, dans... deux (02) jours si...
• Africa Finance Corporation peut aussi exiger le remboursement de ses 105 millions d'euros en cas de...
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 09/09/2026
So... is a more than 10% chance in a decade the new 'sellside 40%'?
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 07/09/2026
I remember the moment in late 2022 when Ramaphosa came close to resigning over Phala Phala. One of his closest advisers told me then he would come back stronger, wouldn't take the reform agenda for granted, etc. Outside Operation Vulindlela (and even then...), it just never really happened.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 04/09/2026
Venezuela’s creditors are looking for credible evidence that oil output can increase quickly, under experienced operators, to stabilise the debt after restructuring. This… is not such a good signal of that. www.ft.com/content/939e...
ft.com
Trump-linked companies race to secure deals for Venezuela’s oil
Appointees, a donor and a recent administration official are among those capitalising on US control of beleaguered energy sector
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 03/09/2026
Not the main thing here, but a black velvet is also known as a way to ruin two perfectly good drinks. A perfect choice then for someone completely flailing at their due diligence.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 01/09/2026
VanEck on Venezuela's debt restructuring: “The IMF is the only independent, credible institution with the resources necessary to rebuild government statistics in a timely fashion and perform a credible, unbiased debt sustainability analysis...” www.vaneck.com/us/en/blogs/...
vaneck.com
Sizing the Haircut, Valuing the Exchange | VanEck
A debt sustainability framework for a Venezuelan bond restructuring, and what it implies for recovery values.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 31/08/2026
“NABEP, based in Barbados, announced Sara Chouraqui’s appointment as general counsel last week. She was previously head of the fraud, bribery and corruption division at the UK’s Serious Fraud Office.” www.ft.com/content/9dbf...
ft.com
Alejandro Betancourt: the man who would be Trump’s ‘viceroy’ in Venezuela
The US has turned to a wily and divisive insider to help it develop the country’s oil reserves
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 28/08/2026
If the US gets a stake in, or long lease on, Venezuelan oil fields, it's a big deal for the debt restructuring. In theory it hits bond recoveries. But it also signals a strong US incentive to raise production, so if creditors get oil warrants... www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Venezuela Weighs OPEC Exit as US Discusses Oil Fields Stake
Venezuela is considering whether it should quit OPEC, according to people familiar with the matter, potentially delivering a fresh blow to the oil cartel it helped create more than six decades ago.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 27/08/2026
The US experiment in Venezuela is basically resurrecting an oligarch it used to shun - WaPo reports that US officials lobbied to help Alejandro Betancourt, a fixer going back to the Chavez era, with a Swiss arrest warrant, as he helps the US with oil deals. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...
washingtonpost.com
U.S. intervened in criminal probe of oilman helping Trump in Venezuela
Swiss prosecutors asked the U.S. Justice Department to arrest Alejandro Betancourt. Instead, he was given a multi-entry visa and allowed to travel to the United States.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 21/08/2026
Venezuela's US-backed oil export boom is so large, its ports can't keep up and is causing shipping traffic jams: www.reuters.com/business/ene...
reuters.com
EXCLUSIVE: Tankers stack up as Venezuela sells oil faster than its ports can handle
Venezuela's dilapidated oil port terminals are imposing a de facto export cap on the country's resurgent crude production, with tankers having to wait up to 30 days to load because of ageing infrastru...
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 20/08/2026
Great column. Also a fun quirk in international law that, as the hegemon, the US actually stuck to the three-mile 'cannon-shot' limit until the 1980s. Then joined (nearly) everyone else on twelve.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 20/08/2026
Iran's stock market is up close to 30% in dollar terms over the past month (chart via Amtelon Capital). Iranian stocks trade on about 3.5 times forward earnings - one sign of an economy that is already very isolated. But hard to crush from outside.
Line chart of Iran's benchmark Tedpix index in US dollar terms from February to August. It climbed from 220 to 340 from Feb to June in a ceasefire rally, ebbed to 250 or so in July as talks broke down, but is back to about 320.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 18/08/2026
The other side of South Africa's post-ANC, GNU big-tent coalition era: extremist political entrepreneurs can flourish posing as 'civic movements' outside the system. And also collaborate across ideological lines.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 13/08/2026
“Inside the [air raid] shelter there was a box of tools with instructions on how to use them to dig yourself out if a strike buries you under debris. Hrubov said a group of workers had found themselves in such a situation recently and all survived.” www.ft.com/content/d046...
ft.com
Sun, sea and bombs in Odesa
In the port city known for its beaches and nightlife, Russian attacks are choking off an export lifeline
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 12/08/2026
The partial eclipse as seen through crescent shadows at Telegraph Hill, London, this evening.
Two pieces of A4,paper held up in front of foliage as eclipse sunlight casts crescent shadows through the leaves
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 09/08/2026
Once again proving my theory about these things, ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ works so well because it’s a comic-book film, not a superhero film, and is very good at achieving the comic-bookness, right down to representing individual ‘panels’. (And absurd melodrama) Sadly no J Jonah Jameson though.
Sequence of panels from an old Lee & Ditko Spider-Man comic, featuring JJJ.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 06/08/2026
Issuance yield of over 12%, but the bond is now trading at around 91 cents on the dollar. The trend toward private placements in African sovereign debt: great if you are in the group of investors able to get in on the deals. Quite bamboozling if you are not.
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Gavin Jackson @gavinjackson.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
There is little sign of any "jobs apocalypse" in India's IT sector www.economist.com/finance-and-...
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 04/08/2026
Stanchart on why last Friday's yen intervention made an impact: ”On balance, we and the market estimate $5-10bn of EUR-JPY intervention by the Treasury and roughly $36bn bought by the Japanese authorities on 31 July... Summer Friday afternoons are not very liquid.“
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 03/08/2026
Another sign of this is that emerging market debt - corporate and sovereign - is starting to become a ‘not the hyperscalers‘ asset class, in terms of how fund managers pitch it as less AI exposed. Don't fancy Oracle? Buy (er) Saudi Arabia.
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Chris Whittall @chriswhittall.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
NEW: Trading frenzy builds in hyperscaler debt and CDS markets A record $127bn of AI-linked corporate bonds changed hands in July, ~15% of total US IG trading volumes (vs 4.5% in 2025) CDS volumes also through the roof Hyperscalers now the driving force in US credit www.ifre.com/topic-codes/...
ifre.com
Trading frenzy builds in hyperscaler debt and CDS markets | IFR
People & Markets Traders report healthy two-way flow as spreads widen
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 31/07/2026
Taiwan's central bank has of course also devoted itself to a years-long crusade against the Big Mac index. (See www.cbc.gov.tw/en/cp-448-18..., www.cbc.gov.tw/tw/cp-432-57..., etc)
cbc.gov.tw
Central Bank of the Republic of China-Press Releases-Statement Regarding The Economist's Recent Piece ''The Hidden Risks in Taiwan’s boom''
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 31/07/2026
Bit late to this but saw that Senegal's parliamentary speaker (and former PM) has endorsed a committee to investigate the total return swaps (details of which everyone first saw in the FT). It still needs input from the president. Who is now the former PM's rival... www.assemblee.sn/fr/actualite...
assemblee.sn
Assemblée nationale du Sénégal
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Duncan Money @mininghistory.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Spotted in an upmarket mall in Joburg last month: half-price on lab-grown diamonds. Not a positive sign for the viability of diamond mining.
Photo of a window display in a jewellery shop with various diamond jewellery on display. Blue signs advertise "Half Price Diamonds".
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 30/07/2026
Situational Awareness update: www.ft.com/content/2803...
ft.com
Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness seeks to raise capital after AI rout
Hedge fund has held talks with existing investors and lenders in recent days
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Toby Nangle @tobyn.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
RIP Jim Leaviss www.ft.com/content/882e...
ft.com
Jim Leaviss, Bond Vigilante, 1971-2026
A fond farewell to a fund-management veteran
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 29/07/2026
SocGen: Assets under management in those now notorious SK Hynix and Samsung single-stock leveraged ETFs have dropped back to May levels, when the mania in Korea for these products really kicked off. Points to the scale of recent leveraged selling of these stocks (which may or may not ebb now)
Societe Generale chart of single stock leveraged ETF AUM in products tracking SK Hynix and Samsung, in US dollar billions. SK Hynix peaked near $25bn in May-June, now under $10bn, Samsung near $10bn / under $5bn.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 28/07/2026
Well well well, those AI-exposed, Indian IT outsourcing stocks don’t suck so much now, do they? Tata Consultancy Services is up 18% this month. (Please ignore that it’s still down 25% so far this year)
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 28/07/2026
'Shadow Turkey' strikes again. “Iran has a big population, a big consumer market, and certainly a huge benefit for Dubai as its trading and re-export hub,” says a Dubai official. “It’s very important for us in terms of going back to a normal relationship.” www.ft.com/content/6d2d...
ft.com
The UAE’s bold gambit on Iran
It has quietly rebuilt economic and diplomatic ties while also deepening defence links to Israel and the US
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Josh Spero @joshspero.ft.com · 25/07/2026
Having spent a very happy 18 months sinking into its 3,000 pages, I have written about why reading Proust is essential in the 21st century as.ft.com/r/32995bbf-8...
as.ft.com
Proust in the age of TikTok
The French writer’s seven-volume magnum opus was a challenging choice for a book club — but its evocation of the human psyche makes essential reading for our times
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 24/07/2026
I'm not saying there's going to be a King Lear situation or anything, but Aliko Dangote has three daughters and they are (as here) increasingly taking over as the public faces of the business of Africa's richest man. With some very ambitious financial targets. financialpost.com/pmn/business...
financialpost.com
Dangote Targets $100 Billion Empire With Oil and Fertilizers
Aliko Dangote is betting that Africa’s largest refinery, the continent’s biggest cement producer and his fertilizer businesses will expand his empire fivefold to $1…
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 23/07/2026
Channel 4 reality show where Venezuela's bondholders ditch Rothschild, Lazard, etc and go with a panel randomly selected from the British public. Nans versus oil warrants
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 22/07/2026
“The Venezuelan government set up a website to track the revenue from US-run oil sales, but it has only one entry — a transfer of $300mn in March…” www.ft.com/content/0e56...
ft.com
The US has collected about $13bn of Venezuela’s oil money. Where is it?
Washington has given diverging accounts of where the earthquake-shattered country’s funds are going
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 21/07/2026
I finished Sandman Mystery Theatre, a great 90s comic - a great romance comic! - that is up there with the very best homages to 1930s noir/pulp. So here’s a version of Wesley Dodds, DC’s original Sandman.
Digital sketch of DC’s Sandman, emerging from a cloud of his sleeping gas. Gas mask, trilby hat, gloves and cape over a suit are all present and correct.The underlying pencil and inks that were scanned for the digital colour sketch.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 18/07/2026
“Did ya think if you ate quietly, the sun god wouldn’t hear you?” is a line from the Odyssey script I’ll certainly be reusing
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 17/07/2026
Barclays ponders whether India's diaspora aren't buying the foreign currency deposits being promoted by the central bank to prop up the rupee (like in 2013, www.ft.com/content/2002...) because they've been too busy profiting from chipmaker stocks (until recently anyway):
At a time when overseas equity markets have surged, especially chip stocks (notwithstanding recent volatility), many NRIs may view these deposits as a less attractive option, albeit one with far less volatility.  Moreover, while the Indian diaspora is much wealthier than it was in 2013, the wealth is increasingly invested across a range of assets and is potentially less liquid than in 2013.  At a time of increased geopolitical uncertainty, any liquidity may come at a premium.
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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 16/07/2026
Marvel Comics is leaving New York (narratively, the centre of the Marvel comics universe) & going to California. It's a bit like Motown leaving Detroit. But after so many media mergers and synergies, it's actually remarkable they were still in NYC so long. www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...
hollywoodreporter.com
Marvel Comics to Leave New York and Move Staffers to L.A. as Part of Major Overhaul (Exclusive)
The Disney-owned publisher is also getting a new editor in chief as 100 employees are being asked to relocate to Burbank by next July.
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