ECB

Clearly, Stark sees the monetisation path the ECB is on as not at all compatible with thee ECB’s mandate. Separately, the noises coming out of the German governing coalition show exasperation with the progress in Greece. Edward Hugh writes…

BoE holds steady, with markets awaiting the ECB press conference; European stocks firmer. Important speeches from Bernanke and Obama; Bernanke likely to signal potential measures. Brazil swaps and futures market pricing in significant rate…

The fact that Italy's 5-year CDS prices remain elevated (376 now vs 388 on Aug 4 peak) warns that ECB bond buying, fiscal austerity has not convinced private sector investors that the worst is truly past. This offers a poor backdrop from…

We should observe a blowout in Eurozone interbank spreads. And while we may still see this in the coming weeks, we have not seen anything resembling 2008 levels of panic.

This has been an extremely tumultuous week throughout the capital and commodity markets. August itself has been a cruel month. The German stock market has lost around a quarter of its value. A marked slow down in the US and Europe in Q2 has…

The Italian debt markets are a lot calmer this week than they were the week before last because the level of Italian bond yields is now more or less completely guaranteed by the European Central Bank (the ECB). However, Italy’s problem is…

Dangerous stuff being kicked around at a dangerous time. Our sense is both leaders were relieved by the success of ECB intervention to bring down Spanish and Italian bond spreads and they will continue to rely on Trichet’s monetary bazooka…

Remember, this is a solvency crisis too, not just a liquidity crisis.

It is also worth stressing that this solution is far from perfect. We do not live in an ideal world. It is only one possible way of breaking the vicious circle into which the Euro Area countries have now fallen. It is one possible way, and…

As usual, I find Felix Zulauf’s commentary very perceptive. He has been right consistently for the whole of 2011 in predicting where things have gone. What he is saying is that the fundamentals in the west are weak and now that growth is…