FRANKFURT | By Hendrik Kafsack at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung via Presseurop | Germany is going down the green energy road, Poland is drilling for shale gas, and the United Kingdom has announced the building of new nuclear plants: when it comes to energy supply and security, the Europeans are hauling in different directions. It’s in their own interest, though, to adopt a common strategy.
NEW YORK | By Ana Fuentes | Micro-blogging star Twitter made its debut at NYSE on Thursday, opening at $45.10 a share, well above the $26 set by the firm and its bankers. Indeed, it was a big day for the New York stock, more than for the company itself, since what we saw on the floor was a mere game of offer and demand, nothing to do with the company’s real value. Outside of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, many find it hard to get excited about this IPO.
MADRID | By Julia Pastor | Telecom Italia needs to reorganise its balance sheet via a capital increase, a dividend cut or a sale of assets. Spanish Telefónica, which has a 22.4% stake of the Italian firm through Telco, may be willing to help the company by a convertible securities issue or the participation in that capital increase.
THE CORNER TEAM | Put the champagne in the freezer. Against most expectations, the ECB lowered its main refinancing rate to 0.25 percent on Thursday in order to encourage the eurozone’s recovery. Mario Draghi took this measure responding to a slump in inflation that has sparked fears the economy could stall, years after financial crisis broke and years after most other central banks did the same thing.
MADRID | By Ilan Brat and Christopher Bjork at The Wall Street Journal via Presseurop | It has puzzled Spanish bank analysts for years: Why did the country’s mortgage delinquency rate rise so slowly even as unemployment soared above 26%? A big part of the answer—revealed by a spate of bank earnings reports in recent days—is that Spanish lenders had been making their loan books look healthier than they really were by refinancing big numbers of loans to struggling homeowners and businesses.
MEXICO CITY | By David Brunat | Latin America is on its way to give a lesson to the European Union in terms of employment. By the end of the year the subcontinent is to hit a 6.2% jobless rate, a record low, according to a shared report issued by the Economic Comission for Latin America and the Caribben (ECLAC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO). The region has already reached a 6.6% rate in the third quarter, while in the EU Spain, Portugal and Greece are approaching a staggering 30%. Latin America’s jobless rate is even lower than that of the United States (7.3%).
MADRID | By Alex García and @sr_dios
LONDON | By Barclays analysts | Disinflationary pressures and significant monetary tightening in the euro area suggest ECB action sooner rather than later. In our view, the probability of an easing at the ECB’s December meeting has increased and will likely be priced-in through a lower EUR heading into the meeting and beyond.
ATHENS | By Ilias Makris via Preseurop | “Help!” Arriving in Athens on November 5, representatives of the EU-ECB-IMF troika met with the Greek Minister of Finance, Yannis Stournaras. Their meeting focused on the the question of the country’s budget deficit in 2014 along with measures to ensure its compliance.
THE CORNER TEAM | The economic crisis has inflicted devastating damage on the population: there are 15 million more unemployed people in OECD countries than in 2007. Relative poverty is on the rise. Young people are increasingly dependent on their families. Life satisfaction and citizens confidence in the political system has plummeted, mostly in Greece, Italy and Spain. This is the OECD X-Ray of the challenges ahead.