Portugal

Portugal’s election on 4 October was inconclusive, without any party winning an absolute majority of the votes. The President of the country, a former Prime Minister, allowed his own party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Pedro Passos…

Yesterday, I ended my analysis writing that, “there is enough flexibility in this deal that both sides can declare victory”, and that “from a market perspective, I expect risk-on mood to re-assert itself now. And with the tailwind of lower…

Despite, the high cost of gasoline/petrol in Europe due to tax, the fact that Europe is a large net importer of oil means the decline in oil price will be more of a boost for that continent than it is to North America where concerns about…

I have long warned that the euro crisis was going to return. But recently my concern was more concrete i.e. that the renewed recession fears in Europe would force a decoupling between the periphery and the core in the Eurozone. This seems…

Earlier today, I had an interesting back and forth on Twitter with Edward Hugh, Claus Vistesen and Matthew Lynn about Europe and the ECB. I think we all believe there is more pain to come for Europe and likely there will be writedowns. But…

The Euro area composite PMI rose to 54.0 from 53.1, making it unlikely that the ECB will move against deflation in May The Chinese HSBC/Markit flash manufacturing PMI was up to 48.3 from 48.0. However, this still shows contracting…

With Spain posting its first gains in GDP in over two years, every media outlet I have seen is trumpeting this as the end of the eurozone recession. I called it early, yes. However, one quarter’s GDP growth does not make recovery. Let’s…

I continue to anticipate a recovery in Europe in the second half of this year. The manufacturing PMI data that were released this morning suggest we could be in recovery before the end of the quarter. This makes me relatively upbeat about…

Remember how French President Hollande was saying a month ago that the euro crisis is over? Well, he was wrong. Today portugal's yields on 10-year paper vaulted to as high as 7.9% before settling back down again.

In the past two weeks, a lot has happened in Europe. I would say the general tenor of the news flow has been downbeat. Nevertheless, I am mostly positive on Europe. I don't see an imminent eurozone breakup, nor do I see a further dip into…