Hypo Real Estate

Germany has moved center stage in the credit crisis despite having not experienced a housing bubble in the run-up to the bust. Switzerland and Japan, along with Germany are three countries I find notable in not having participated in the…

On the heels of weekend trouble at European banks, markets in Asia and Europe are selling off this morning. At the weekend, we learned that Hypo Real Estate, a finance behemoth in Germany with $700 billion in assets was feared to collapse.…

I have been a bit on edge of late because of the credit crisis that is making headlines. Recently, a lot of people have been duped into believing that the economic crisis we are experiencing is not critical and have their eyes focused…

Facing a potential breakdown in its banking system, the German government has decided to offer a blanket guarantee to private savings deposits (see comments below from German blogger egghat about this distinction), much as Ireland and…

The Europeans have no idea what is about to hit them. Their banking system is collapsing and European politicians are fighting amongst themselves. At French President Nicolas Sarkozy's crisis summit, the politicians were unable to craft a…

A week into the European leg of the meltdown of the global financial system, Germany has hit major turbulence. Hypo Real Estate, a member of the DAX-30, Germany's equivalent of the Dow Jones Industrial Average looks to be on the verge of…

Below is an article I wrote that appears in this morning's Guardian Newspaper in the UK. The crux of the article is that European politicians need to realise that their banks are not immune from the crisis that has hit the United States and…

UPDATE: 9:30 AM ET: This post has been updated to reflect the events surrounding Fortis. On Friday, I warned that European government officials like Peer Steinbrück of Germany should refrain from chastising the U.S. and the U.K. over…

(See my Credit Crisis Timeline for the news stories associated with the writedowns and related events during the crisis, the most recent of which you can find here.)Yalman Onaran at Bloomberg News has tallied the writedowns in the credit…

European banks are still in need of time or money to recapitalise their weak balance sheets. This has to be especially worrying for UK banks as they have raised a significant amount of capital and their housing market has yet to see the…