Dollar Firm As Italy Yields Rise, Euro Zone IP Falls

The dollar is broadly firmer as Italian yields rise at 5-year bond auction, euro zone IP falls.Swiss data weak ahead of SNB meeting tomorrow; Norges Bank seen cutting rates 25 bp. China data gives cover for more PBOC easing; RBA suggests AUD weakness will help cushion economy

More News Links: Verizon’s Netflix Bid, Google’s Siri, and Mobile driving ban

More News Links for 13 December 2011 including a report of Verizon chasing Netflix, Google building a siri competitor and a potential mobile driving ban

News Links: Hendry’s ‘China short’ fund makes big returns as China Stocks Drop to 2-Year Low

Financial news links on China, technology companies, the eurozone debt crisis and more

The ECB now wants export-driven growth for the whole of Europe, not just for Germany

The ECB President admitted that budgets cuts and tax increases are contractionary -“in the short term” he added – but there are two ways to lessen their negative impact on growth: the confidence-enhancing effect that will follow the new “fiscal compact” or “if you enhance the competitiveness, you can actually count on your external demand, on your net exports”

Nervous Calm over Currency Market

A good reception to a Spanish bill auction and a some what better than expected German ZEW investor survey helped stabilize the risk sentiment which had been battered yesterday. The major foreign currencies are mostly firmer on the day, but the modest gains have left the short-term momentum indicators a bit over-extended. This would seem to favor early North American participants selling into the currency bounce

News Links: Yuan Limit Down for Ninth Straight Session

Financial news links for 12 December 2011 including stories on privacy, the European sovereign debt crisis, China and India

More Charts of the Day: Italy Works Over 20% More Hours Than Germany and France

The stereotype of lazy southern Europe and the hard working North is just not reflected in the data. We came across this BLS data set over the weekend which was very enlightening and, in part, smashes this widely held generalization

Bank run in Latvia

Rumors of an impending bank failure in Latvia over the weekend led to a run on bank machines. In many places it was impossible to get money

Plan B for Breakup

There were only two questions that mattered, going into the EU summit. Would leaders come up with any actions to help end the immediate crisis? Falling short of this, would any of their actions allow the European Central Bank to step up its role and be a lender of last resort. The answer to the first question is very clear: NO. The answer to the second question is, unfortunately, another question

Chart of the day: Euro nations with largest deterioration in fiscal situation

Here are two interesting charts courtesy of the Macro Business Superblog. In outlining how the latest European crisis response policy fails to deal with the underlying issues in Euroland, Macro Business also illuminated the individual debt and deficit trajectory of each euro nation. The charts highlight where the euro area countries have broken the Maastricht stability and growth pact criteria

Full Text: Moody’s: Euro Area Sovereigns Remain Under Pressure In Absence of Decisive Initiatives

Below is the press release issued by ratings agency Moody’s in response to the most recent initiative in Europe to solve the sovereign debt crisis

A Deep Seated Hostility Towards European Construction?

The British decision to veto the proposed new EU treaty is not surprisingly provoking an avalanche of commentary this weekend. Among journalists, at least, there seems to be a consensus that David Cameron committed some kind of major diplomatic blunder.

Possibly this is so, but given the difficulties presented by having to take this agreement forward outside the formal structure of the EU, it is hard to not reach the conclusion that both Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have been guilty if not of a similar blunder, then at least a major error of judgment