Italy

The question is not whether Greece will default but what will happen once it has. If Greece defaults but stays in the euro, not only will it not solve the underlying lack of competitiveness, but markets will immediately turn their attention…

Most analysts agree that Greece is insolvent. This column argues that the issue is whether Greece’s troubles are contagious.

We have been closely monitoring the firewall that has appeared to protect Spain from the other Portugal (Ireland and Greece). Recent developments appear to be weakening that firewall and pressure is mounting on Italy now as well. It is…

What follows is simply a follow-up note to my earlier (Elephant in The Euro Room) piece on Italy. The decision by S&P to put Italian sovereign debt on negative outlook, and the subsequent announcement by Moody’s that it was considering…

As had been anticipated, the Greek parliament has approved the austerity measures along party lines. The parliament will vote on the implementation bill tomorrow. This may be a bit stickier, but it too is likely to pass. Assuming so,…

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.…

I expect a soft restructuring sometime in 2011 followed by a certain degree of dithering and a hard restructuring down the line. But, of course, the tail risk is there.

Within the context of our Macro-Global Discretionary Managed Accounts Trading Program, we are bearish on European stock markets, and are becoming increasingly interested in the bearish side of the US equity market. We are bearish on bond…

Looking through the latest round of EU GDP data, one thing is becoming increasingly obvious: when it comes to future monetary policy decisions at the ECB, and to exactly how many more interest rate hikes we are going to see, then the…

When the pejorative acronym PIGS was first created, it was supposed to be a moniker for the southern European states (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain). However, Italy has done much better than housing-crisis stricken Ireland and so…