2012

This week's second weekly-length post is just another review of the Price Waterhouse Coopers study that is big news in the German press. I have now seen the numbers in a bit more granular detail and I wanted to run through them for me…

The US consumer can't catch a break. As if rising food prices weren't enough - with corn prices at record highs and other food prices expected to move higher next year - we now also have a sharp increase in gasoline prices.

In spite of the drop in VIX, there is no confidence that the recent market stability is sustainable over the longer term.

Some maintain that Italy and Spain risk losing market access for their sovereign bonds despite drops in yields. A recent Vox column by Francesco Giavazzi suggested that Italy could and should avoid a bailout. This column argues that in…

A study of European banks by the consultancy Price Waterhouse Coopers is making the rounds in the German-language press. I haven't seen the study itself but it is communicated by PwC in Frankfurt earlier today. Hence the interest in…

It is clear that lending to Spanish banks is now funded entirely via TARGET2 (borrowing from the rest of the Eurosystem) rather than with deposits. In fact deposits at the Bank of Spain by the Spanish government and Spanish banks (excess…

Last weekend, I got that familiar blue screen of death on my PC laptop, you know that blue screen with a bunch of cryptic lines of words on it that tells you your computer just crashed and everything you were working on was for naught. I…

I don't think China or Australia is falling out of bed yet but the situation is clearly deteriorating in both countries. A lot of pundits have begun to question the official statistics out of China, especially given the weak electricity…

Quick post here to highlight then continued losses in Spanish property markets and the effect on Spanish banks. House prices in Spain were down 11.2% year-on-year in July. That's the largest fall since March 2011 and it brings all in losses…

I want to concentrate on the popped Web 2.0 bubble in the wake of Groupon's earnings and subsequent share price slide. Web 2.0 is for real. I know that may be a strange way to start a post on Groupon and the Web 2.0 IPO bubble but it's…