Euro currency crisis. The End?

[Thick Face Black Heart]

Deemed investment grade by who?Moody's,Fitch, S&P? You'd be better off holding on to your cash for now.

You have a point.

 

[Cruxx]

[video=youtube;mUDx4ZEATFg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUDx4ZEATFg[/video]

 

[Windsor]

Pressure mounts on Europe as finance ministers meet

By Jan Strupczewski

BRUSSELS | Tue Nov 29, 2011 4:23am EST

(Reuters) - Euro zone finance ministers are to agree on Tuesday the details of bolstering their bailout fund to help prevent contagion in bond markets, under pressure from the United States and ratings agencies to staunch a two-year-old debt crisis.

President Barack Obama pressed European Union officials on Monday to act quickly and decisively to resolve their sovereign debt crisis, which the White House said was weighing on the American economy.
Underlining the threat to tottering European economies, ratings agency Moody's warned on Tuesday it could downgrade the subordinated debt of 87 banks across 15 countries on concerns that governments would be too cash-strapped to bail them out.
Rival Standard & Poor's could downgrade the outlook on France's top-level triple-A credit status within the next 10 days, signaling a possible ratings cut, a newspaper reported. The news briefly hit the euro.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama's message, delivered to top EU officials behind closed doors in Washington, was that: "Europe needs to take decisive action, conclusive action to handle this problem, and that it has the capacity to do so.
Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski made a dramatic appeal in Berlin on Monday for Germany to show more leadership in the euro zone crisis.

"You know full well that nobody else can do it," he said in a speech in the German capital, referring to efforts to save Europe's monetary union.
"I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity. You have become Europe's indispensable nation."
Tuesday's meeting of the Eurogroup, which brings together finance ministers from the 17 euro-zone members, was set to fix details of leveraging the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) so it can help Italy or Spain should they need aid.

They are also likely to approve the next tranche of emergency loans for Greece and Ireland.

Hopes that signs of concrete action could ease strains on the euro zone boosted markets, with Asian equities and the euro rising for a second day on Tuesday.

DETAILED PLANS
Documents obtained by Reuters on Sunday showed the detailed guidelines for the EFSF were ready for approval, opening the way for new operations and multiplying the fund's effective size.
The documents spell out rules for EFSF intervention on the primary and secondary bond markets, for extending precautionary credit lines to governments, leveraging its firepower and its investment and funding strategies.
"I would expect we will be in a position to approve the guidelines at a political level," a euro-zone official involved in the preparations for the ministers' meeting said.
The EFSF guidelines will clear the way for the 440 billion euro facility to attract cash from private and public investors to its co-investment funds in coming weeks.
The European Central Bank (ECB), which is now buying bonds of Spain and Italy on the market to prevent their borrowing costs running out of control, has been urging euro zone ministers to finalize the technical work on the EFSF quickly.
Officials have told Reuters that the leveraging mechanisms could become operational in January, but that may be too late.
With Germany rigidly opposed to the idea of the ECB providing liquidity to the EFSF or acting as a lender of last resort, the euro zone needs a way of calming markets, where yields on Spanish, Italian and French government benchmark bonds have all been pushed to euro lifetime highs.
ECB ROLE
The OECD rich nations' economic think-tank said on Monday the ECB should cut interest rates and abandon its reluctance to step up purchases of government bonds in order to restore confidence in the euro area.
The ECB shows no sign of doing so yet. It bought 8.5 billion euros of euro-zone government debt in the latest week, at a time of acute turmoil, in line with its previous activity but well short of what economists say is necessary to turn market sentiment around.
Sources have said the Obama administration has also urged Europe to allow the ECB to act as lender of last resort as the U.S. Federal Reserve does.
Germany and France stepped up a drive on Monday for coercive powers to reject euro zone members' budgets that breach EU rules, alarming some smaller nations who fear the plans by-pass mechanisms for ensuring equal treatment.
Berlin and Paris aim to outline proposals for a fiscal union before an EU summit on December 9 that is increasingly seen by investors as possibly the last chance to avert a breakdown of the single currency area.
"We are working intensively for the creation of a Stability Union," the German Finance Ministry said in a statement. "That is what we want to secure through treaty changes, in which we propose that the budgets of member states must observe debt limits.
Rumors about the threat to France's credit rating, which have circulated for several months, illustrate how the crisis has moved inexorably from indebted peripheral nations such as Greece and Portugal to the heart of Europe.

Economic and Financial daily La Tribune reported on its website that S&P's was preparing to change its outlook on France's sovereign rating from "stable" to "negative".
"It could happen within a week, perhaps 10 days," La Tribune quoted a source as saying.
The news coincided with the warning on subordinated debt from Moody's, which said the greatest number of ratings to be reviewed were in Spain, Italy, Austria and France, and knocked the euro a third of a cent before the currency recovered.
"Moody's believes that systemic support for subordinated debt in Europe is becoming ever more unpredictable, due to a combination of anticipated changes in policy and financial constraints," the agency said in a report.
Holders of subordinated debt are further back in the queue than owners of senior debt when it comes to a claim on a bank's assets, thus making it a riskier class of debt.
Mario Monti, Italy's prime minister and finance minister, will attend Tuesday's Eurogroup meeting to explain the reforms Italy plans to undertake to regain the confidence of markets.
Saddled with debt equal to 120 percent of GDP and soaring borrowing costs, Italy has been battling to avoid financial disaster, which analysts say would endanger the whole euro zone.
Italy must balance its budget by 2013 and offer immediate fiscal measures worth 11 billion euros if it wants to regain its credibility, according to a document on Italy that will be presented to the Eurogroup, Italy's La Repubblica newspaper said.
In a sign of intense market stress, short-term Italian yields last week climbed above those of longer-dated issues. Both are higher than the 7 percent level widely seen as unsustainable for the country's public finances.
The funding pressure is set to be underlined on Tuesday, when investors are expected to demand more than 7 percent at auction to buy three- and 10-year Italian debt.
(Additional reporting by Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin; Writing by Alex Richardson; Editing by Neil Fullick)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/29/us-eurozone-idUSTRE7AR0P320111129

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

Am sitting in front of the comp screen and temptation is mounting to sell a few lots of euro/usd at market.

 

[chuckyworld]

Gold has entered a 6-12 month consolidation phase. I think it is dead money for the time being.

With euro and usd problem, i prefer gold, part ofwhat i bought last Monday, TLM. RY.TO, IRE,LYG, MFC, SU.TO, C,CNQ...... will hold it for a few months....

 

[psy83]

Don't be too happy. A recession is defined to be two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. All they need to maintain a positive GDP is to import more foreigners, which leads to more misery for Sinkies. We are not in a recession as yet but you already want to take a dive in Bedok Reservoir. If I were you I wouldn't get my hopes up at all.

Cabbies like kraty gains more with more foreigners who dont have their own veh.

 

[GOD IS MY DOG]

i hold a lot of investment in euro, i die lor.

no worries...............the Rothschilds own the European Central Bank and the Euro is just part of their plan for a European Super State..............


current crisis is only a way for them to tighten their control over Europe..................

 

[Fook Seng]

This is not the plain vanilla kind of recession. In the 2008 recession, considered among the worst since the Great Depression in the early 30's, the fuel was more a dip in market confidence than anything else. That is why most analysts at that time did not anticipate it. The sub-prime debt was only in the region of 2% of the entire mortgage debt in the US and yet the recession was one of the worst in 80 years. This time, we talking about real debts of very large amounts held by several OECD countries at the same time that the US has a historical high in deficit. Japan's economy is also weak, the same for practically every country of any good size, with the exception of emerging economies, notably China. Of course since every region is in trouble, then the simple solution is for all to start printing money and devalue their currencies with respect to each other and the end result will be back to square one, more or less. Right? Not quite. Some countries particularly the emerging economies like the BRIC countries will suddenly find a sudden appreciation of their currencies but they have to deal with a market not able to afford their produce at the new price to cover their costs. The same goes for commodities exporting countries. Do they then restructure their economies to bring prices to a level affordable to the market? Not so easy to do. Even in the Eurozone, not all countries are in the same plight. Are these stronger economies as willing as the others to devalue the Euro? If you ask me, it would be wiser for healthier countries such Germany to quit the Eurozone and leave the others to devalue the Euro. China, Japan, Germany and US can then provide funds to prop up the Euro to a level they are comfortable with. More and more, it seems that Germany could be the odd man out in Europe.

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

With euro and usd problem, i prefer gold, part ofwhat i bought last Monday, TLM. RY.TO, IRE,LYG, MFC, SU.TO, C,CNQ...... will hold it for a few months....

What platform do you use to trade canadian equities?

 

[Clone]

I doubt the Germans will leave the Eurozone, the implications of that is just too huge.

Things will trudge along as long as the economic indicators from the US are holding up.

The worst may be behind us but where's the capitulation? I haven't seen that yet.

This is not the plain vanilla kind of recession. In the 2008 recession, considered among the worst since the Great Depression in the early 30's, the fuel was more a dip in market confidence than anything else. That is why most analysts at that time did not anticipate it. The sub-prime debt was only in the region of 2% of the entire mortgage debt in the US and yet the recession was one of the worst in 80 years. This time, we talking about real debts of very large amounts held by several OECD countries at the same time that the US has a historical high in deficit. Japan's economy is also weak, the same for practically every country of any good size, with the exception of emerging economies, notably China. Of course since every region is in trouble, then the simple solution is for all to start printing money and devalue their currencies with respect to each other and the end result will be back to square one, more or less. Right? Not quite. Some countries particularly the emerging economies like the BRIC countries will suddenly find a sudden appreciation of their currencies but they have to deal with a market not able to afford their produce at the new price to cover their costs. The same goes for commodities exporting countries. Do they then restructure their economies to bring prices to a level affordable to the market? Not so easy to do. Even in the Eurozone, not all countries are in the same plight. Are these stronger economies as willing as the others to devalue the Euro? If you ask me, it would be wiser for healthier countries such Germany to quit the Eurozone and leave the others to devalue the Euro. China, Japan, Germany and US can then provide funds to prop up the Euro to a level they are comfortable with. More and more, it seems that Germany could be the odd man out in Europe.

 

[chuckyworld]

TDwaterhouse

 

[Fook Seng]

I doubt the Germans will leave the Eurozone, the implications of that is just too huge.

Things will trudge along as long as the economic indicators from the US are holding up.

The worst may be behind us but where's the capitulation? I haven't seen that yet.

Did you read Obama's speech to the EU? He seemed worried and anxious.

 

[Clone]

Did you read Obama's speech to the EU? He seemed worried and anxious.

Of course Obama seemed worried and anxious. Elections are due in 2012.

For the conservative investors, wait and see first. No need to fish at the bottom to make money.

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

TDwaterhouse

Thanks, will check that out.

 

[Fook Seng]

Of course Obama seemed worried and anxious. Elections are due in 2012.

For the conservative investors, wait and see first. No need to fish at the bottom to make money.

How much investments are you putting in? Why not give us a performance report along the way?

 

[Clone]

How much investments are you putting in? Why not give us a performance report along the way?

As I've said b4, I see no meaningful bottom yet for a change of trend.

I could be wrong though.