sovereign debt crisis

There have been two main surprises this year. The first is how the jasmine revolutions in MENA. It is one thing to recognize the fragility of those ancient regimes, it is another thing to watch a number of government's collapse. The second…

Portugal does not appear to have had the boom that Ireland and Spain had. Portugal's problem is the chronic grind loss of competitiveness due to high costs and low productivity. We note that Portugal's latest inflation reading of 3.6% in…

The three notch downgrade of Greece from Ba1 to B1 by Moody’s was a bit surprising, even to jaded followers of rating agency behavior. While we have remained negative on the country, is it really as bad off as Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Belarus,…

By Marc Chandler ECB President Trichet is signaling a rate hike and the market debate seems to be between April and May. While the monetary setting may be too easy for Germany, the peripheral countries, where the debt crisis has been…

With yields on Portugal now above 7.4%, many are predicting Portugal will soon need a bailout because it cannot reduce its debt load with yields that high. Portugal simply cannot grow its economy fast enough to pare debt with yields that…

The Absolute Return Letter, March 2011 By Niels Jensen “Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes” Oscar Wilde A remarkable month Two remarkable events unfolded during the month of February. One cleared…

By Win Thin Portugal remains in the market spotlight as its 10-year yield remains above 7% for the 10th straight day. Furthermore, today Portugal’s 5-year yield broke above 7% for the first time and continues the pattern that we saw with…

This is the excellent video of Edward Hugh at the London School of Economics this past Monday speaking about the intersection of finance, macroeconomics, housing and sovereign debt in the Credit Crisis. (hat tip afoe). The topic is on how…

Highlights The US dollar is little changed since Friday but stronger against the euro, which is largely a sign of euro weakness as opposed to dollar strength. The euro is susceptible to event risk this week, after hitting recent highs,…

By Michael Pettis Because of the lunar New Year festivities when I wrote my newsletter little had happened in China besides the 25 bp interest rate hike on Tuesday, not counting of course the never-ending stream of fireworks and the…