CAPITAL MADRID, José Sánchez Mendoza.– Pay more, almost double, but with a comfortable loan that covers all or most of the amount. It’s a win-win situation, don’t you think? Though it may seem, this is not the lamp seller in a Moroccan bazaar’s talking but the candy that banks put in front of consumers to get rid of the housing stock that hampers their balance sheets. According to a study…
FLORIDA | with informations from Brian Bandell | City National Bank of Florida reported improved earnings in the second quarter of the year as it announced plans for four new branches. The Miami-based bank earned $10.3 million in the second quarter, up from $9.4 million in the first quarter. Its net interest income grew to $30.6 million in the second quarter from $30.2 million. Still, figures are 8.8 percent lower than last year in the same…
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | German Chancellor Angela Merkel the executioner recently said that austerity is the right path, and that Canada should provide a good enough example for non-believers. Should we have a closer look into her claims?, of course we must. Unfortunately for her, it clearly appears to be the case that Canada’s success has been supported by a monetary policy absolutely at odds with the European Central…
Morning! Today we bring you the last part of our summer series interview with Professor of Economics at Columbia University Martin Uribe. He believes that the Eurozone needs structural changes to tackle the crisis, especially in fiscal matters. The lesson we should learn from this crisis is to avoid high capital inflows into a country as happened to Spain from 2000 to 2008. – Several Nobel laureates have decried budget…
By Tania Suárez, in Madrid | In Spain, the fall in the housing prices is intensifying and that is a reason to rejoice. Last July, the average housing price fell 11.2%, but the granting of mortgages went down by 21% in the first half of the year. It is obvious that the owners may not feel comfortable with these decreases, but the truth is that as housing prices keep on…
MADRID | Bankia shares seem to have become a toy amid high volatility on the Madrid stock market index Ibex35. This week so far the entity suffered a -16.08 percent loss of price in two consecutive sessions, after the State fund for banking restructuring FROB announced that stockholders will be partially shouldering, too, the costs of the rescue of the bank with taxpayer money. Banco de Valencia stock fell by -23.8…
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | Here you are, Spain’s updated accrued passive account with Target2 or intra-system operations pending compensation. Its sheer volume and the scale by which it increases clearly expose that we are in for our troubles. How can the euro zone authorities postpone solutions until September? The scenario does not look good. The chart registers data from the Bank of Spain until June. The debt goes…
MADRID | A frozen fish processing company from Galicia, in the north of Spain, was recently awarded the Green Card by the US’ Food and Drug Administration. The FDA isn’t exactly easy-going, but the Spanish firm has already access to the US market and extensive presence in Europe, including Russia. The news isn’t a surprise, of course: the Spanish food industry is successfully competitive, its exports have risen by 8.4…
The seemingly dead weight of the peripheral economies continues to mark a divide within the common currency region. The overall picture, unavoidably, registers the cut. GDP fell by 0.2% in both the euro area and the EU during the second quarter of 2012, compared with the previous quarter. Also according to flash estimates published by Eurostat Tuesday, in the first quarter of 2012, growth rates were zero in both zones. Compared with…
Hundreds of thousands of retail investors may share an uncomfortable feeling these days, that of being trapped under their holdings of what once was commercialised as ‘patriotic bonds’. Unloading them is proving a difficult task. While most sovereign and sub-sovereign debt securities in the secondary market move millions of euros, daily trade volumes of short-term paper issued in 2011 and 2012 by Spanish regional governments rarely reach the modest figure of €50,000….