France

The past two weeks have seen large disruptions in the global capital markets and various policy responses. Market participants are having a difficult time getting a handle on these developments. There are three things investors should…

There are two spotlights in Europe today. France and Switzerland and their problems are intertwined. Despite denials by various French officials, the market suspects there is sufficient smoke to indicate a fire. Reuters reports that an…

The point is that this is a rolling crisis where investors have realised that the sovereign debt profiles right across Euroland have problems. And because there is no lender of last resort, the weakest debtors get plucked off one by one…

Euroland is coming apart at the seams. Belgian/Bund spreads are now also over 200bps along with Italy and Spain. Belgium has just entered the periphery and France is not far behind.

France and Germany have the greatest exposure to Greece and their banks are expected to be the one’s with the lion’s share of the losses in the voluntary debt exchange deal. Here is a chart from the BBC below, detailing the exposure to…

Contagion in the sovereign debt crisis has already spread to Spain and Italy. David Blanchflower believes it may spread yet further to France. On Bloomberg, Blanchflower led off saying this would not be surprising, pointing to the dithering…

Now obviously, there are the issues of efficiency and fairness to think about. However, I want to look at this from a pure forecasting perspective. and stick to the tack I began in October 2010 with “Less Policy Advocacy and More Policy…

I want to take a look at the latest news concerning the Greek situation using the political framework I laid out earlier in the month.On the whole, things are proceeding pretty much as anticipated.

If the EU/IMF does this for Greece why not Ireland and Portugal? It is difficult to envision Ireland being able to go back to the markets next year as originally intended. Therefore, it too will likely require another round of assistance.…

The German court adds another element of uncertainty in the debt drama and may shape the particular outcome. There is some danger that parliament's prerogatives are defined to include the upper house as well and there Merkel does not enjoy…