Eastern Europe

In the links yesterday, I pointed to an FT article detailing the Austrian government’s nationalization of the insolvent bank Hypo Group Alpe Adria (HGAA). The financial institution, which has 40 billion Euros in assets, is the country’s…

This post from November 2009 is a reminder of how things looked in the sovereign debt crisis just a few months ago.

Today, Moody’s warned that Iceland, Latvia and Hungary were stabilizing but that their economies remained fragile. The problem is high debt levels, which is restraining consumer spending. Recovery in the Eurozone has been the main aid to…

Both Latvia’s and Estonia’s debt ratings were downgraded by Standard and Poors.  Estonia was cut from A to A-, while Latvia was cut to BB+ to BB - its considered high yield securities aka junk bonds. This should come as no surprise as…

Back in April, I mentioned a story about BTA, a bank in Kazakhstan that had been nationalized by the state in February.  The interesting bit about the story was that interested parties from abroad (including Morgan Stanley) had…

This comes via der Standard, an Austrian daily.  My translation below: The international financial crisis has hit eastern Europe harder than previously expected, according to a press report. At least ten states are negotiating with…

I am not the only one who sees events in Latvia as a potential catalyst for further downside risk to the reflation trade.  Mary Stokes over at Nouriel Roubini’s site has a very readable post out on why we should be watching events in that…

Dollar bears are getting their way in the currency markets right now.  While most eyes are peeled on Sterling (up 3 big figures since Friday) and the Euro, all currencies are rising against the Dollar (including the Commodity Dollar Complex…

Marc Faber participated in a roundtable discussion on CNBC this morning about the dreadful figures coming out of Europe (see articles here and here). At one point, the German CNBC correspondent made a very good comment about Eastern Europe…

This morning you may have read Gideon Rachman’s positive view on Hungary.  He said the panic is all but over and it looks like Hungry is going to get through this debt crisis. The horror scenario envisaged a Hungarian banking collapse that…