Spain

by Win Thin of BBH Here are some final thoughts on the Moody’s downgrade of Spain.  In general, Moody’s has been too soft on Europe and the downgrade to Spain was long overdue.  We still believe that the downgrade story will…

Highlights The US dollar remains on its back foot. The main driver remains the contrast between the likely trajectory of Fed policy in contrast to the ECB. Moody’s 1-notch downgrade of Spanish credit rating and news that Anglo-Irish needs…

by Edward Hugh According to Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero speaking in an interview with the Wall Street Journal last Tuesday the European sovereign debt crisis is over. "I believe that the debt crisis affecting…

by Claus Vistesen (with apologies to Frederick Goodall) The financial and economic discourse is a funny beast really; it can, if harnessed properly, shed light on future investor and market performance, it can give a diversified and…

by Edward Hugh Well, that didn’t last long, now did it. Two consecutive quarters of minimal GDP growth seem to have exhausted the forces of a more than fragile Spanish economy. All the post-June data we are seeing suggests the economy has…

by Edward Hugh Well, as we all well know one swallow doesn’t make a summer, and one data point doesn’t swing an argument one way or another, but the latest retail sales PMI reading for Germany is far from being either uninteresting, or…

by Edward Hugh Spain’s EU harmonised seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate (which is the interesting number) went up again in July, according to the latest data from Eurostat. It rose to 20.3% from 20.2% in June. So despite a double…

by Edward Hugh: Barcelona The current generation of policymakers seem to be like Captains of large ocean liners, out there on the high seas, bereft of either compass or adequate charts, trying hard to calm their worried passengers by…

As the property markets in Spain, Ireland, and Britain have dried up, a mass of Eastern European immigrants specialized in the building industry have found themselves without a stable source of income. The decline in remittances back to…

Watching the TV news here is Spain at the moment is often a rather discomforting and sad affair. The normal menu seems to consist of a constant stream of ministers who have to appear before the cameras and the public to explain something…