Europe

Cyprus is not an important player on the world's financial stage but it does bear noting that banking and sovereign debt problems run both wide and deep in the European Union. The latest news underscoring these difficulties comes via Fitch,…

Here's a good video performance by Marshall Auerback on BNN's Business Day program. Marshall thinks the Greek default deal is actually a relatively good one. But sees a Portuguese default after the Greek default as a real possibility and…

I was thinking about that last post I wrote on the euro zone and regulatory forbearance. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So here's a picture that captures my thinking pretty well.

Even if the private sector participation sufficiently high, will it be enough to put Greece's debt on a sustainable path? This seems unlikely and there is increasing risk that the ECB forgoes getting anything but its initial investment…

This is me thinking out loud about how regulatory forbearance in the S&L crisis mirrors today's policy path.

The headline story in the Financial Times today is that "Banks set to double crisis loans from the ECB". The report says that "several" large banks from the euro zone told the FT that they "could double or triple" their takes at the LTRO.

Dollar is heading lower after the EU summit saw 25 of the 27 nations endorse the new fiscal compact. EuroStoxx 600 is nearly 1% higher as a result, banks up nearly 1.3%; MSCI Asia Pacific index up 0.7%. Japanese data showed a surge in…

the banks now browbeat governments – not by having ready cash but by threatening to go bust and drag the economy down with them if they are not given control of public tax policy, spending and planning. The process has gone furthest in the…

The market has been focused on the negotiations over the private sector involvement in reducing Greece’s debt burden. Yet, the PSI is so yesterday. There are many moving parts and the PSI, which has dominated the market’s attention, is…

Portugal appears to be headed down that same road. While we have warned in the past of risks that Portugal would need a second aid package, it is only since S&P joined the other major rating agencies on January 13 that more market…