by John E. Charalambakis | Aug 8, 2011 | Commentaries, Uncategorized
Last Friday’s evening downgrade by the S&P was ill-timed and ill-advised. We wrote a week ago that we would not be surprised if it took place. We will reiterate our position that August again will prove to be a pivotal month in the financial markets. No need to...
by John E. Charalambakis | Aug 1, 2011 | Commentaries, Uncategorized
As we are drafting this commentary, the news is that a deal for the US debt limit is very close to be completed, that will involve the raising of the limit by at least $3 trillion in two phases. It seems that the political theater is approaching its end. Our opinions...
by John E. Charalambakis | Jul 21, 2011 | Commentaries, Uncategorized
As an opening statement allow us to paraphrase David Liss’ claim in his novel A Conspiracy of Paper, where he claims that finance is an animal, and the government needs to decide how big the cage should be. In a few days we will be entering August. The memories of...
by John E. Charalambakis | Jul 11, 2011 | Commentaries, Uncategorized
The old anthem of imperial Europe cried out, “Hail, Europe, our true Fatherland”, and Italy nowadays enters its own phase of the Eurozone crisis. Italian bonds’ spreads over Germany’s Bunds have risen to their highest levels since 2002, as the following graph shows....
by John E. Charalambakis | Jul 5, 2011 | Commentaries, Uncategorized
As of yesterday (July 4th), it seems that the European debt crisis is entering into a new phase, with the expected new downgrades of Greek paper by the major rating agencies, which warned that “selective default” is at hand, due to the terms of the rescue package...