Morning Commentary; Market Analysis & viewpoints
Simon Denham, Capital Spreads
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Friday 9th January 2009 The German government finally succumbed to the pressure of the credit crunch and banking crisis yesterday by plunging €10bn into Commerzbank. The bank is a major constituent of the German economy and lends to millions of their customers both private and institutional and this indicates once again just how reliable the whole of the economy, from start to finish, is on banks . . . more |
Articles & Features
- In the second in his new series looking at the credit crunch fallout and calls for tighter oversight of the financial services industry, Drew Hillier continues to investigate the issues, speaking to key players and taking soundings around the pressing question of the day: ‘is the 21st Century framework of bank regulation ‘fit for purpose’?
- At this years SIBOS, which found itself understandably preoccupied with the meltdown in the financial system, nigh-on 1,000 delegates packed themselves into the plenary room on the very afternoon of Meltdown Monday....
- The global markets have been in somewhat of a tailspin the last several months due to a windfall of events. Problems stemming from the credit crisis and rising inflation have put severe strain on some of the largest economies in the G10. DP has contracted on an annual basis in the US, and the trend of slowing growth has spread to neighboring countries. Foreign Exchange captures the full scope of a country's economic health through the concept of relative value
- Drew Hillier talks to George Soros about the Credit Crisis of 2008 and beyond. The billionaire investment guru and hedge fund manager, George Soros, has a remarkable reputation, and - in many minds - a controversial one, for positioning himself on the right side in a crisis. No greater was this sentiment exemplified, and certainly no more firmly welded inexorably into the public consciousness..
- If, as the popular saying goes, a week is a long time in politics, then in the case of economics a decade must be an eternity! Markets go up, markets go down, but in June, endless talk of credit crunches, global storm clouds and recessionary pressures was suspended, at least for a day or two, whilst the European Central Bank broke out the bubbly and bunting...
Making the Headlines
- Reports in the British press that the Government is considering printing more money as a tactic to tackle the credit crunch have been strenuously denied by the Treasury...
- In a review of its operations, Barclays Bank, which employs 150,000 people worldwide, 63,000 of them in Britain, has announced more than 400 workers are expected to lose their jobs, mainly from the firm’s IT departments...
- The ban on short-selling of financial shares in the UK blamed, among other things, for steep falls in HBOS shares and trading in the stock market last year which led to an investigation by the Financial Services Authority, is to be lifted...
- The VocaLink take home pay index has fallen dramatically in December to just 2.9%, the weakest increase since January 2008. Overall the average wage growth in 2008 rose by just 3.7% and for the second consecutive year the increase in retail prices has exceeded growth of take home pay...
- Austria’s Bank Medici – just one of the numerous financial institutions hit by the fraudulent investment scheme perpetrated by Wall Street veteran, Bernard Madoff, – has been taken under the wing of the Austrian state...