This is a Spanish-language only News Round-Up on the economic situation in Spain from El Pais.
Zapatero pisa el acelerador por la crisis

¿Crisis? ¿Qué crisis? “Escenario de dificultad”, “periodo de ajuste fuerte” o “desaceleración profunda de la economía”. Éstos son algunos de los términos que empleó ayer el presidente del Gobierno, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, para [...]

Surprise, surprise. Consider this a holiday surprise as many are out in the U.S. for Memorial Day and in the UK for the Bank Holiday. Multiple sources were reporting that UBS warned in its 985-page capital raising prospectus late on Friday that it anticipates potential further losses in its non-U.S. property portfolio. [...]

A leading Spansh newspaper, ABC, reported today that Spanish growth is decelerating quickly. According to the paper, year-on-year growth slowed from 3.5% to 2.7% while quarter-on-quarter, growth was only 0.3% versus 0.8% in the previous quarter.
The article goes on to say that construction spending has been hampering both growth and employment as housing has [...]

Update: A more thorough analysis of the Spanish economy is at my post Outlook for Spain: Recession.
The leading Spanish Newspaper ABC is reporting that furniture sales are down 20% nationally for the first three months of 2008 due to the housing bust in Spain. As in the US, affected property markets will see the [...]

On Friday, the Spanish newspaper ABC reported that Spanish municipalities are being hit hard due to the tax revenue shortfalls emanating from the effects of the Spanish property market crash. The two local governments most affected have been Madrid and Catalonia.
“The two municipalities that earned the most from [property-related] taxes, Madrid and Catalonia, in [...]

The Telegraph reported Friday that sales in the Spanish property market have plunged and many British vaction home investors will find themselves under water.
“In the clearest sign yet that the boom is over, the developers said the combined value of their sales had plummeted from 1.3?billion euros (£1?billion) to less than 300?million euros (£240?million).
There are [...]

Spain is perhaps the next domino in the global credit bubble to fall. The UK economy is slowing as well, but the pace of slowing in Spain is truly remarkable.
According to Spanish-language news reports I have seen today (see Round-up), Spain is being hit with a housing bust that has led to increasing unemployment [...]

As I have mentioned in previous posts, the housing bubble was an international phenomenon. As a result, the U.S. subprime meltdown is indeed spreading beyond this limited sector. In the US, expect Alt-A and prime mortgages to feel the pain as the economy suffers recession. However, I would like to turn the [...]

While we all expected house prices to slow and even fall in bubble markets like Ireland, the UK and Spain, it comes as news to me that prices are slowing in Germany as well. I was just in Germany this past month, and while there were economic concerns, the atmosphere felt entirely different than it does in a place like the US.

If you are looking for companies that have yet to write down massive amounts of losses in this global credit meltdown, look no further than Banco Santander. The Spanish Bank holds a major position in the Spanish mortgage and construction boom. The Spanish property market is heading south quickly and I fully anticipate [...]