I have written about depreciating the dollar before. Here is some recent supporting and related news from our friends in Europe and Japan….
In Europe, something odd is happening. The recently-weaker Euro currency is allowing Germany to experience a mini economic boom. Last week, Germany announced its fastest quarter of economic growth since 1990. I recall [...]

The carefully choreographed results were announced yesterday. Markets reacted by doing nothing until the ECB held a PR conference. Markets then gained a little less than 1%.
 
The results are that 91 banks across 20 countries were tested. 7 banks failed: 1 in Germany, 1 in Greece, 1 in Slovenia, and 4 in Spain. Failure of the test means [...]

Probably the most significant financial news was when the German financial system regulators spooked stock, bond, commodity, and forex markets this week. They announced a ban on naked short selling of stocks and bonds of Germany’s 10 largest banks, German sovereign bonds – called Bunds, and credit default swaps on Bunds. 

Short selling is where you borrow a [...]

On top of the $145B Greek emergency loan package, we now have another loan package worth 750B euro or roughly $970B to help stave-off a default from any of the PIIGS: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. 
 
Here’s how it breaks out:

The 15 eurozone countries (those countries that use the euro as their currency) other than [...]

 
The Economist magazine says “Greece looks bust”. No argument there…
 
Given that we here in the US are essentially the pot calling the kettle black, we need to pay attention because the stakes are very high. How high?: several estimates for eventual losses on bonds from:Portugal, Greece & Spain total $800B. This is more than sufficient [...]

Here we go….

March 16 was a deadline for Greece to update the EU finance ministers on their progress to bring down their deficit this year.
March 17th:  the most important person in Europe right now -Angela Merkel  (the German Chancellor – the leader of the German federal government) gave a statement indicating the Eurozone must change [...]

Indulge this for a moment…  Let’s say you’re German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The entire European Economic Community is putting pressure on you to lead a bailout of Greece because they don’t want contagion and they know you’ve got the pocketbook to pull it off. But you’re a little tired of non-stop handing money over to the rest of [...]

As I watch US & international stock and bond markets move over the past few days and weeks, it is clear that markets are schizophrenic. The only news that propels stock markets is further bailouts. Case in point, this article is about whether and when Greece will be bailed out. So this is what it [...]

 
What’s going on this week…
 
The 2 issues causing stock, bond, commodity, and currency markets to move :

As you know, Europe has an issue called PIGIS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Spain). These countries have debt that is out of control (where we may be in a few years) and is causing tremendous angst in bond and [...]

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the……….. Mount Fuji.  Didn’t see that coming did you? I have previously written about the state of the broad European economy and some of the countries therein. Specifically of interest are the PIGIS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Spain).  This note contains a brief update on Spain – and [...]