London’s day of shame: plunging markets, mob rule and absent leaders August 8, 2011 THESE are terrible, depressing times. London is burning. Gangs of criminals have been allowed to roam unchecked, with our horrifyingly powerless authorities failing to bring the situation under control. To those of us who love London, yesterday was a day of gloom, shame and shared pain. The images of dozens of shops, homes and cars [...]
Italy’s Berlusconi faces calls to resign August 8, 2011 ITALIAN Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is facing calls from opposition politicians for him to resign over his handling of the country’s mounting debt crisis. Though Italian bond yields dropped to just above five per cent yesterday following the European Central Bank’s intervention in the market, the opposition accused Berlusconi of surrendering sovereignty to EU authorities. [...]
Supermarkets cut petrol prices as oil tumbles August 8, 2011 SUPERMARKETS have cut the price of petrol from near-record levels after the cost of oil tumbled in the face of continuing fears over Eurozone debt, the US downgrade and plunging stock markets. Asda was the first of the big retailers to announce yesterday that it would cut the price of unleaded petrol and diesel by [...]
Trading floors fight freefall August 8, 2011 AS THE dealing floor at IG Group waited nervously for the “US open” at 2.30pm yesterday after Friday’s carnage in the global markets, the atmosphere was surreal. The trading floor was eerily quiet as Dow Jones opened down almost 220 points on the close of Friday, punctuated by the occasional “excellent” in the voice of [...]
Germany says fund size to stay August 8, 2011 GERMANY said that it remained opposed to expanding the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), just hours after the European Central Bank (ECB) agreed to buy Italian and Spanish bonds, in an attempt to prevent financial market chaos. “The EFSF will remain what it is,” a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday. The stance [...]
Greece puts halt on short-selling August 8, 2011 SHORT-SELLING will be banned on the Athens bourse for two months starting this morning, Greece’s stock market regulator said yesterday. The Athens bourse index closed down six per cent last night, a fall nearly twice as steep as that of European peers. “The board of the capital market commission, after considering the urgent circumstances on [...]
INSIDE THE ECB’S BOND STRATEGY August 8, 2011 Q.WHAT DOES THE ECB HOPE TO ACHIEVE? A.By purchasing Italian and Spanish bonds, the European Central Bank is aiming to stop further contagion across debt-burdened sections of the Eurozone. Q.HAVE ANY PURCHASES BEEN MADE SO FAR? A.While the ECB is thought to have entered the market yesterday, after an 18 week hiatus, details of its [...]
S&P lowers more ratings August 8, 2011 A SWATHE of US institutions were stripped of their gold-plated credit ratings by Standard & Poor’s as the fall-out from the downgrade of the US rating agency continued yesterday. As Moody’s weighed its decision to hold the US at AAA, S&P cut the two giant US mortgage agencies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to AA+ [...]
ECB pays a premium for breathing space August 8, 2011 DESPITE all the economic turmoil, the price of one commodity continues to rise inexorably. No, not gold, but breathing space. That is all the ECB has bought by entering the market for Italian and Spanish bonds – and it will pay a heavy price. Analysts at RBS think the ECB and the EFSF, the new [...]
RATING AGENCIES DISAGREE OVER US DEBT OUTLOOK August 8, 2011 Standard & Poor’s S&P says that the agreement made on 2 August in Washington DC “falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilise the government’s medium-term debt dynamics”. Essentially S&P is less confident in DC’s ability to significantly reduce the deficit. “The effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions [...]
