MADRID | The financial City of Madrid was coming Monday to the conclusion that a rapid intervention from the European Central Bank would be the only effective barrier to support Spanish sovereign bonds in the markets. The alternative of using the assistance programmes of rescue funds European Financial Stability Facility and European Stability Mechanism to buy debt in the primary and secondary markets had pushed aside the ECB recourse. This…
MADRID | The extensive sell-out on Friday shows the desperate situation Spain is facing. Shattered confidence on the government ability to overcome a looming crash landing, is sending shivers down the spine of investors. People are starting to bet Spain will be forced to bailout one of these days. But, unlike other salvaged countries, its sheer size prevents a rescue package from providing a way out in soothing its woes….
MADRID | www.consensodelmercado.com | Ibex listed companies have rewarded their shareholders, regarding dividends and other payments, with €16.082 billion in the first six months of this year. The figure represents a 8.5 percent rise over the amount paid in the same period in 2011. According to the report published by BME (Bolsas y Mercados), the operator of all stock markets and financial systems in Spain, the result also marks a…
MADRID | Most observers take for granted that the rescue seems the most likely scenario. They simply look at the rising trend risk premium shows. They may be right. But the right question to ask is why confidence on Spain is faltering so much.
By valenciaplaza.com, in Valencia | The tide might not yet be changing but there is a constant, if slow, thread of judicial instances shaming banks in Spain and elsewhere in Europe. A court in Valencia has condemned BNP Paribas Spain to pay €44,504.89 in compensation to a client who was sold preferred shares. Specifically, the bank transferred to the client, from a contract entered into on October 26 in 2006,…
MADRID | Words containing the Latin suffix “tio” tend to raise passionate sentiments. Just think of “revolution” or even “Constitution”, a rather harmless expression nowadays that fuelled bloody rifts in the 19th century. Banking “resolution” is leading to similar high-pitched controversies. Not to mention “liquidation”, a reference readily subject to censorship as the Bank of Spain governor has recently discovered. The recommendation to ensure his full independence apparently will have to wait…
MADRID | The Euribor, at which most home mortgages in Spain are referenced, has fallen 0.001 percentage point in its daily rate down to 1.044 percent. This is the tenth consecutive occasion in which the inter-euro zone banking rate decreases to a historical minimum. Its average level in July was of 1.127 percent, one point less than a year ago, causing a significant reduction of mortgages’ total debt, on both new ones…
MADRID | One-off cuts and further squeezing measures have been taken in a desperate attempt to avoid budgetary discomfiture. By mid-term central government deficit had already attained its full year target, not to mention a regional and local performance no one knows for sure where it stands. A drastic brake to such blatant slippery became an unavoidable option. The markets and Brussels have done the rest. Free-running risk premium has not…
By Tania Suárez, in Madrid | Things are getting even more difficult in Spain. First, the recently announced measures of adjustment, then the protests from the mining industry and now it is the turn of the Spanish regions. Minister of finance Cristóbal Montoro said that he wouldn’t be as permissive as Brussels has been with Spain; that the government will not extend the period for the regions to achieve the fiscal…
MADRID |Fernando G. Urbaneja| Premier Mariano Rajoy did not expect the economic picture to be that overwhelming, although it was predictable, nor former premier Mr Zapatero could believe in May 2010, that he was meant to play the role he so reluctantly played. Both of their reactions are part of Spain's problem: government leaders, alleged leaders dragged from the events who have to act against their beliefs. Ms Rosa Diez (former…