sovereign debt crisis

So what is the trade? If Italy continues to blow out and a big bazooka EFSF bailout fund is not attainable, the EU will be faced with certain death or massive ECB bond purchases. We think they will choose the later, which makes the Euro a…

Events continue to spiral beyond the control of European policy-makers. With so much time and effort being put into Greece, the troika now finds itself facing a much bigger problem: Italy. While it has been difficult to remain committed…

The guys at Brown Brothers Harriman said this morning that we shouldn’t expect much from the G-20. They seem pretty pessimistic about the politics in Greece too. If you want a visual representation of what they’re saying, here you go.

"Yesterday, the headline in the Frankfurter Zeitung was “Democracy is Junk.” The meaning was the financial sector was saying that democracy is incompatible with collecting debts and, when debtors can’t pay, with foreclosing on the public…

Harvard Economist Kenneth Rogoff has a post up at Project Syndicate which does a good job in laying out the conundrum that Europe faces in the sovereign debt crisis. He theme is exchange rates and currency revulsion. But the underlying…

"The treaties indeed confirm what we have been saying here: the treaty doesn't foresee an exit from the euro zone without exiting the EU, so indeed that is the current situation." -European Commission spokeswoman Karolina…

This post describes how austerity works in the European Monetary System where the euro is used as a currency. I will start by framing the difference between currency users and currency creators, then move to how central banks and government…

I had been willing to dismiss the rumours that Greece was forestalling a military coup. Others have since said the change in top brass is standard protocol for a Greek government preparing for its potential loss of power and that the…

Now that we have had a chance to digest the information from last night, there are a number of developments to report on the Greek situation which are relevant to unravelling likely scenarios going forward. Here is my synopsis of what has…

European stocks rebounding amid talks of Greek government collapse, potential referendum withdrawal. ECB likely to remain on hold but signal December rate cut; US service ISM key data report today. EM focus on potential for China easing…