2011

Pressure is mounting on Spain. The 10-year yield today is essentially back to where it was when the ECB broadened its sovereign bond purchase scheme to include Spanish and Italian bonds. On Oct 27, the 10-year yield was near 5.33%. Today it…

Sean Parker: "Little Startups Are Ridiculously OverFunded" | TechCrunch It's gotten so bad that, says Parker, "Now institutionally-backed venture funds are backing other venture funds in order to stay close to the…

I think Monti and Papademos are going to try to shoehorn the standard policy responses into the situation in order to reduce the range of outcomes they have to deal with. In a practical sense, that means going with the standard formula of…

Overnight price action marked by choppy trading conditions; Most EM stocks and currencies lower, safe havens advance. North American session likely to focus on US data; Inflation expected to remain flat, industrial production seen higher.…

When I was running through Italian default scenarios earlier in the day, I asked “Could Italy unilaterally exit the euro zone and redominate euro debts at par into a new Lira currency to forestall the default? Perhaps. That is something to…

Walt Mossberg takes a look at Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet. How does it stack up against the iPad and the new Nook Color?

About a year ago I told you there would be less policy advocacy and more policy forecasting at Credit Writedowns. This is an update.

Andrew Haldane, in my opinion, generally has the right idea about banks and their risks, which are risks not just “to themselves” but to all of society and the global economy. Yet here Haldane’s endorsing the sort of sleight of hand that…

Yesterday, I showed you that contagion had spread and default probabilities were blowing out right across Europe. Every single name on the list for sovereign credit default wideners was European and names like Austria, Estonia, and Slovakia…

There are a number of ways that European banks are moving to boost their Tier 1 capital and strengthen their balance sheets. Some are cutting dividends, diluting current share holders through new rights issues, laying off staff, and selling…