Tag Archives: sovereign debt crisis

Eyes Wide Shut as Spain’s Banking System Collapses

As Spain collapses into depression, its banks are holed below the waterline and sinking rapidly, because they are the only remaining buyers of Spain’s sovereign debt. The government, unable to provide state aid to its banks, is desperately bending over backwards to hide the true state of its financial sector.
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Throwing the Bond Market Out With the Bath Water

The war the EU has declared on the ratings agencies shows why investors should not underestimate its determination to scapegoat “Anglo-Saxon” speculators for the sovereign debt crisis, and reduce “excessive profits” in the financial sector. Even if it means cutting off the EU's nose to spite its face.
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Europe’s Sovereign Debt Crisis Hasn’t Gone Away

It’s surprising that the banking crises facing Ireland and Portugal, and the wider European banking sector - have not been more contagious. While the risk of Ireland and Portugal defaulting soars, other Europe sovereign bond yields remained fairly flat in the third quarter, and Greece even enjoyed a rally of 140bp to 775bp. This calm is not likely to last long though, before more questions are asked of the banks which own the dodgiest euro-zone debt.
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Update: Germany Heads into the Double-Dip Zone

As the Angry Analyst warned, the fiscal austerity being implemented in Greece and the other Club Med countries would soon be felt because Germany has been relying on exports to these countries – not China – for growth. Economic sentiment, as measured by the ZEW institute, collapsed in September. This is particularly significant, because as can be seen from the accompanying chart, it leads the other key indicator produced by the IFO institute. And where this indicator leads, German industrial output is sure to follow.
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More Evidence of German Banking Untruths

As if further evidence was needed that the German banks have been lying about the true state of their balance sheets, and that a German banking crisis is in the offing, we learn that German mortgage lender Hypo Real Estate will receive another €40 billion of state guarantees.
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The Second Wave of Europe’s Banking Crisis is Crystallizing

As the crisis in the European financial sector deepens, trading patterns are indicating a major sell-off within the next month, if the market breaks out of the flag patterns forming in the MSCI European Financials Index. After all, the ECB’s extension of its liquidity safety net for vulnerable euro zone banks – and the guarantees for troubled banks in Ireland – can only fuel suspicion about skeletons in the closet.
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Running Faster to Stand Still, Ireland is Going Nowhere Fast

Standard & Poor’s cut to Ireland’s credit rating is hardly a surprise given that Irish debt is estimated to peak at 137% of GDP, against government estimates of about 94%, despite austerity that will have seen the economy contract by around 15% since 2008 by the end of 2010.  Many more downgrades can be expected [...]
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