Europe

ECB governing council member and Dutch National Bank head Nout Wellink said two weeks ago that the ECB was going to stop lenders abusing ECB's credit crisis policy of accepting lower credit quality. The ECB is going to make good on…

The Danish economy has officially left recession, marking a growth rate of 0.6% for the second quarter of this year. In the midst of much doom and gloom for the eurozone, this is a positive development. More news expected. See other…

At first glance, a flair-up in the Caucasus region seems to have little meaning for Americans. But just as the collapse of the subprime mortgage market ultimately came to symbolize the beginning of the end of an American credit system run…

Yesterday and overnight, there was a ton of news in Europe, in banking and in geopolitics. So, I am going to alter the format of the round-up slightly and give you a rundown with links mixed in.The long and short is that the banking sector…

A year into the crisis, it's time to let banks start to fend for themselves -- or at least let their shareholders do the heavy lifting. That's what the President of the Dutch Central Bank Nout Wellink had to say earlier today. Below is my…

Andrew Smithers is an economic commentator whose book 'Valuing Wall Street' I highly recommend. He is another market economist who shares my view that a 'Buy and Hold' Strategy is not necessarily the best. But he also has an economic…

As you could probably tell -- from all the stories I have been writing about the Baltics, Denmark, Sweden, you name it -- I believe that Europe is the next leg down in the global housing bubble. As such, it will pay to focus as much…

Baltic currencies are overvalued, which has led to hot money flows and unsustainable levels of consumption. A crash is all but inevitable. The Baltics want in to the Euro, Estonia and Lithuania in particular. They are willing to…

This weekend I am at my wife's family reunion so I haven't have a lot of time for blogging. But, I caught an interesting article in Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, which cites an IMF study which claims that property values in Sweden are…

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph in London is one of the more interesting reporters on the business scene. In today's Telegraph, he chronicles the depth and breadth of the global slowdown now taking form.However, the crux of his…