crisis

By Frances Coppola This, my third post on Latvia, looks at its recovery from the 2008-9 recession. Latvia is often held up as the "poster child" for harsh austerity measures as the means of returning to strong economic growth. In…

So where did they get the money? It's an all too familiar story. Inflows of foreign capital, mainly from Scandinavian banks, attracted by low interest rates and a population hungry for credit - credit advanced, of course, against…

In the 2008-9 crisis, Latvia suffered more than any other country despite its extensive bank reforms after the 1995 crisis. Yet only one of its banks failed (Parex): the rest were bailed out by their foreign owners. So the question is, if…

It is quite possible that more than one end game will unfold in the months and years to come. For example, we could see a Greek Eurozone exit. Simultaneously, we could have a crisis unfolding across emerging markets, as the strong U.S.…

The rout in the energy sector is complete now. Cuts in capital expenditure are everywhere you look, not just in shale oil. With oil stocks at a record high level, it is unlikely that a rebound in prices will happen in the near term. And…

While I try not to be too alarmist here, it is clear now that the drop in oil prices has been both precipitous enough and long-enduring enough that we should start talking about this as a crisis in the making. We have an interconnectedness…

By Marc Chandler As the year winds down, a Gordian knot tying Russia, oil prices and China together is receiving a great deal of attention.  Let's see if we can unravel some of the confusing twists and turns. We turn first to China's…

The Russian rouble was last trading at a rate a tad better than 55 roubles to the US dollar and WTI was over $56 a barrel the last I checked. This could be the end of a mini-crisis or a lull in events. I tend to believe it is a lull and…

I am going to concentrate on the news flow today and what it tells us about where this financial crisis is headed. Given the last mini-crisis we had in emerging markets was overcome relatively quickly, the present crisis doesn’t have to…

With financial markets tanking across the board, there is a whiff of panic and some people might be thinking that the next global financial crisis is already upon us. I don’t think this is the case. Certainly, the European sovereign debt…