banks

ELA is the acronym for Emergency Lending Assistance. This is direct lending by the national central bank, with ECB authorization to local banks with more liberal collateral requirements. The national central bank is responsible/liable for…

Michael Pettis had a great write-up on the situation in Spain and Europe's depressing prospects. While his conclusion that Spain will be forced to exit the euro zone is something I have yet to endorse, the logic he uses surrounding many of…

The fact that Spanish bank shares have rallied today (3.1% at pixel time) and have easily outperformed the market (IBEX up 0.3%) following Moody's downgrade of 16 Spanish banks should be understood as a bit of a fluke. Some observers will…

The Spanish banking system is insolvent and the Spanish government simply does not have the wherewithal to clean it up. This is the problem in Spain that has come to a head, particularly now after the rescue of Bankia, Spain's fourth…

I spoke to Paul Waldie and Brian Milner of the Globe & Mail on BNN's headline on Monday. The big story was JPMorgan Chase and the London Whale trades. JPMorgan Chase's CEO Jamie Dimon, as the leading lobbyists for the hands-off…

The big headline today is still JPMorgan Chase and it's huge trading losses. Clearly this is a black eye for JPM but the question goes to what longer term consequences the incident will have.

This is not a good day for Spain. The day began with the EU Commission revising its estimates for the Spanish economy. The contraction is now expected to be considerably deeper. Spain unveiled its new efforts to address the banking…

The evidence is becoming increasingly clear that German policy makers are prepared for Greece to exit the euro zone. Knowing this changes how one should view the likely policy responses in Europe. In the short term, this means allowing more…

In the links today are a lot of links in both English and Spanish about the bailout of Spain's fourth largest bank Bankia. With the partial nationalisation, Spain is moving one step closer to Ireland in committing the sovereign government…

Earlier this week I wrote a post called "Europe edges closer to the endgame" in reaction to the French and Greek elections. Today I want to expand on this for the weekly members' post. While I think we are finally arriving at the…