Post Tagged with: "Eastern Europe"
Bank collapse in Austria brings debt in Eastern Europe center stage
In the links yesterday, I pointed to an FT article detailing the Austrian government’s nationalization of the insolvent bank Hypo Group Alpe Adria (HGAA). The financial institution, which has 40 billion Euros in assets, is the country’s sixth largest bank. But, in relative terms, this is a very large bankruptcy – using GDP at purchasing
New Citigroup maven Buiter warns of sovereign debt delusion
This post from November 2009 is a reminder of how things looked in the sovereign debt crisis just a few months ago
Moody’s: Iceland, Latvia and Hungary in “fragile stabilization”
Today, Moody’s warned that Iceland, Latvia and Hungary were stabilizing but that their economies remained fragile. The problem is high debt levels, which is restraining consumer spending. Recovery in the Eurozone has been the main aid to stabilization, the report said. Absent this support, the outlook is considerably worse. Moody’s re-affirmed Iceland and Hungary’s ratings
More trouble in the Baltics as S&P downgrades
Both Latvia’s and Estonia’s debt ratings were downgraded by Standard and Poors. Estonia was cut from A to A-, while Latvia was cut to BB+ to BB – its considered high yield securities aka junk bonds. This should come as no surprise as both countries have been in the news due to severe economic dislocations
Large bank loses $7.9 billion: CDS involved
Back in April, I mentioned a story about BTA, a bank in Kazakhstan that had been nationalized by the state in February. The interesting bit about the story was that interested parties from abroad (including Morgan Stanley) had significant Credit Default Swap contracts (CDS) written against losses in the banks bonds. In essence, foreign investors
Ten eastern European countries now looking to IMF for bailouts
This comes via der Standard, an Austrian daily. My translation below: The international financial crisis has hit eastern Europe harder than previously expected, according to a press report. At least ten states are negotiating with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for billion-dollar aid programs, Handelsblatt learned from within the IMF community. The applications’ status will
Roubini’s RGE Monitor: Threat of ‘Asia-Style Crisis’ in Eastern Europe
I am not the only one who sees events in Latvia as a potential catalyst for further downside risk to the reflation trade. Mary Stokes over at Nouriel Roubini’s site has a very readable post out on why we should be watching events in that tiny Baltic nation for potential signs of contagion elsewhere. She
Swiss Franc at Dollar parity?
Dollar bears are getting their way in the currency markets right now. While most eyes are peeled on Sterling (up 3 big figures since Friday) and the Euro, all currencies are rising against the Dollar (including the Commodity Dollar Complex – Auusie, Kiwi, and Loonie). For me, the most interesting currency is the Swiss Franc
Marc Faber on passing the baton to emerging economies
Marc Faber participated in a roundtable discussion on CNBC this morning about the dreadful figures coming out of Europe (see articles here and here). At one point, the German CNBC correspondent made a very good comment about Eastern Europe getting killed by a falloff in internal demand due to a severe banking crisis and this
A bearish view on Eastern Europe
This morning you may have read Gideon Rachman’s positive view on Hungary. He said the panic is all but over and it looks like Hungry is going to get through this debt crisis. The horror scenario envisaged a Hungarian banking collapse that would ripple back into the rest of Europe and then around the world.
CDS contracts and the implosion of several Eastern European economies
Today I saw two blurbs about Eastern Europe which I want to pull together with a bit of added commentary about the automakers in the U.S. The first blurb had to do with the Baltics and their probable downgrade to junk by the ratings agencies. This is what Win Thin, a Senior Currency Strategist at
Baltics: Fitch downgrade and more downgrades to come
The first time I wrote about the Baltics was back in August in a post entitled, “Are the Baltics the new Argentina?.” Since then, things have gotten progressively worse and the Baltics are clearly in Depression with Latvia leading the way to the downside. The credit ratings agencies have caught on to this and Fitch