bailout

Politicians, Treasury Secretaries, etc. would have you believe that “moral hazard” is something we should only worry about in the abstract, in the future, when they’ve moved on to another job. But now a study confirms with hard facts: moral…

Last week we witnessed a flight to quality within the euro zone government bond market. The yield on 10-year German government bonds dropped a record 35 points last week. They now yield 1.82 percent. Meanwhile, the yield on 10-year Italian…

The guys at Brown Brothers Harriman said this morning that we shouldn’t expect much from the G-20. They seem pretty pessimistic about the politics in Greece too. If you want a visual representation of what they’re saying, here you go.

This move puts a whole train of future moves in motion, in my view. The Greek people will be apoplectic at this tactic. They will reject the bailout in a referendum out of spite. Greece and its banks will be insolvent. Meanwhile, the run on…

I was going through my archives to figure out when I first started saying Greece would default and it made for interesting reading as a chronology of the sovereign debt crisis. For me, the pivotal post that signalled default was inevitable…

For those of you wondering what's just happened in Europe, here is an animated explanation.

The sharp rally off the October 4th intraday low of the S&P 500 is a result of the assumed prospect of a real plan to save the Euro and slightly improved U.S. economic numbers indicating that we may not be in a recession right now. In…

Here's Roger Bootle talking to Bloomberg's Maryam Nemazee about the deal hammered out yesterday to 'save Greece.' He is quite sceptical. First, the 120% debt to GDP figure that the deal is predicated on reaching is still high and assumes a…

Are these haircuts on Greek debt really such a good idea? Or are they really just a stopgap that will make things all the worse in the long-run? Sure, Mr. Market seems to think they’re fantastic. But then, Mr. Market has always been…

Markets’ initial reaction to the latest EU emergency summit has been positive. Risk assets are trading up, risk-sensitive currencies are up, European bank stocks are up, and the broader stock market is as well. This relief rally is…