Spain

It bears remembering that the German banks are very exposed to the periphery as we contemplate the Spiegel article on Greece's alleged desire to defect from the euro zone.

The main driver that has led to a persistent decline in the US dollar through the last several months is the divergent thrust of monetary policy. It has left the Federal Reserve as a laggard in the global cycle and, in turn, has left the…

I was on CNBC's Power Lunch yesterday talking about European debt markets in the wake of the Irish stress tests. I certainly think the Irish stress tests were a significant event. But the Euro Crisis is really all about Spain.

The results of the Irish stress tests are going to be released this afternoon at 430PM Irish time. I will be talking about the implications for investors in European markets on CNBC's Power Lunch show. I think one has to be cautious…

Thanks to Iza Kaminska for pointing me to the video below of row after row of incomplete homes in Spanish host towns, las ciudades fantasmas. Spain has the same problem of overbuilding that the U.S. had during its bubble days. Now that…

After more than a year since the European debt crisis began, officials have still failed to resolve it. They raised expectations for a “grand bargain” only to crash them on the shoals of political reality. The March 24-25 Summit was to…

The resilience of the euro in the face of seemingly incontrovertible evidence that Portugal will need to get assistance and that very same program and approach has not been enough to stabilize the Greek and Irish situation is amazing.…

By Marc Chandler The market continues to digest the meaning and implications of Moody's decision to cut Spain's rating to Aa2 from Aa1. The two main considerations behind Moody's decision is that the cost to restructure the banks will be…

BBH CurrencyView Highlights The US dollar is stronger, benefitting in part from euro weakness as the sovereign debt returns to the fore and geopolitical tensions linger. The euro fell to the lowest level in a week, down three of the…

By Marc Chandler The newly created European Banking Authority will be overseeing the stress tests on almost 90 European banks. Recall that the stress tests last year met broad criticism for the lack of rigor. It was anticipated that the…