NEW YORK | The US are anxious over Greece. Wall Street fell on Wednesday and the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its biggest one-day decline this year. Treasury 10-year note yields traded below 2 percent as European leaders work on an eventual €130 billion financial bailout for Athens at their next meeting on February 20. Investors did not hide their worries: “As much as we’d like to ignore Greece and…
MADRID | According to Capital Madrid, Deutsche Börse’s executives as well as NYSE Euronext’s are already seeking other growth options, after the European Commission blocked their merger earlier this month. The fact is that the initiative has turned differently in both parts of the Atlantic. As the Germans have sped up the negotiations held with other European stock markets, the New Yorkers are trying to convince investors that they are able…
LONDON | Will Moody’s tear out the British triple-A badge before those precautionary 18 months go? If the rationale of the warning issued by the financial risk ratings agency to the Coalition government is that the European neighbourhood may in the near future find even harder to charm investors and so will drag the island’s economy with them towards deeper recession, then the top award became meaningless long ago. Markets know this, but still,…
NEW YORK | While Europe is determined to cut the deficit now and see what happens later, the Obama administration has chosen the other way: spend now, cut in the long term. As the president has just put it “[We] can’t just cut our way into growth.” Not willing to risk the improvement the US economy is experiencing, he has sent to Congress a $3.8 trillion budget for the fiscal…
NEW YORK | They call it Obama’s reluctant blessing: the US president has given top bundlers the green light to raise cash for the political organization that supports him, Priorities USA Action. Barack Obama was an outspoken critic of the 2010 Supreme Court’s decision that allowed these so called super Political Action Committees (Super PAC’s) to raise unlimited amounts of money from corporations, unions or individuals. An increasingly big group…
By Juan Pedro Marín Arrese, in Madrid | Analysts are busy collecting evidence for a huge recession. The 70% drop in the Baltic Dry Index, ranging now below the lowest level hit in 2009, has been hailed as the proof doomsday is looming. It seems that only bad news are taken on board, others being hastily dismissed as rubbish. Are prospects so bleak? Well, we are far from expecting a favourable…
By Tania Suárez, in Madrid | IAG’s CEO Willie Walsh said last year that if the opportunity arose, they would definitely be willing to take a major equity stake in Japan Airlines. Now, that opportunity has apparently arisen. IAG has come to an agreement with Japan Airlines (JAL), and both companies will soon sign a joint business agreement. According to Walsh himself, IAG has “established very close links with JAL”…
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | The reason? Well, their States are exemplary. No banks in trouble, no massive public debt but a very aggressive monetary policy to grease the inevitable deleveraging process. Let us compare them to the US, for instance, whose gross debt to national GDP has already touched the 100pc base. This, I suppose, should shake the beliefs of old Keynesians like Krugman, stubbornly champions of a…
The EU is not closing the persistent gap with global innovation leaders US, Japan and South Korea. The European Commission on Tuesday published the results of its Innovation Union Scoreboard, which includes innovation indicators and trend analyses for the EU 27 Member States, as well as for Croatia, Iceland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey, and also compares a more reduced set of indicators between the…
NEW YORK | It would be great news for hundreds of thousands of people: billions of dollars (an estimated $25 billion) in aid to homeowners who have lost their homes to foreclosure or who are still at risk. The money would come from big mortgage banks: Bank of America, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial. Why on earth would those banks be willing to pay that amount? They…